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PRINCE BISMARCK. 
1877. 



EUROPEA 



Days and Ways 



BY 

ALFRED E. LEE, 

LATE CONSUL-GENERAL U.S.A. 



. 






: 



ILLUSTEATED. 



^ C 0PY RIGHT *V\ 



PHILADELPHIA: 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY. 

1890. 



Copyright, 1890, by J. B. Lippincott Company. 







\*\ 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER PAGE 

I. — From the New World to the Old ........ 7 

II. — A Winsome German City . 13 

III. — General Grant at Frankfort .......... 24 

IV. — William I., King of Prussia 32 

V. — William I., Emperor of Germany ........ 56 

VI. — German Social and Family Life ......... 72 

VII. — How the Germans Educate 88 

VIII. — Some Glimpses of Holland 97 

IX. — From Snow to Sun ................. 113 

X. — Among the Austrian Alps. 1 131 

XL — Among the Austrian Alps. II 147 

XII. — From Sun to Snow 170 

XIIL: — A Tramp through Tyrol ............. 192 

XIV. — The Splugen, the Lakes, and St. Gothard .... 216 

XV. — Over the Furca to Meiringen ........... 239 

XVI. — The Hasli-Scheideck, the Faulhorn, and the 

Schynige Platte . 247 

XVII. — Through Sicily. I. ................ 253 

XVIIL— Through Sicily. II 266 

XIX. — Around the Sorrento Peninsula ......... 282 

XX. — Pompeii and Vesuvius 300 

XXI. — From Mayence to Madrid ............. 316 

XXII. — Toledo and Cordova 334 

XXIII. — Through Andalusia 342 

XXIV. — Bartolome Esteban Murillo ........... 358 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

Prince Bismarck, 1877^ . Frontispiece. 

Ariadne (Dcmnecker) .................... 13 

The Departure (Relief on the Niederwald Monument) ..... 32 

The Eeturn (Relief on the Niederwald Monument) ....... 56 

The Palmengarten (Music and Refreshment Hall) ....... 72 

The Palmengarten (Interior of the Great Conservator!/) .... 97 

The Konigssee ....................... 131 

The Ehone Glacier .................... 239 

Amalfi ........................... 282 

Seneca (Portrait Bust, Vffizi Gallery, Florence) ......... 334 

Moorish Interior (Algiers) ................. 342 

A Modern Moorish Type (Algiers) ............. 358 



EUROPEAN 

DAYS AND WAYS. 



CHAPTER I. 

FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD. 

Our steamship, the City of Richmond, cast off her lines in 
New York harbor one exquisite morning in May. As usual 
on such occasions; many friends of the voyagers on board 
had assembled to see the ship off, and had laden the cabin 
tables with their parting floral gifts. With cheers and flutter- 
ing handkerchiefs these friends gave us their final salute as the 
shapely steamer swung into the stream, and with tremulous 
thrill sprang away in quick response to the motion of her 
engines. The waving adieux soon became indistinguishable, 
and the great city, with its deep-voiced activities, rapidly dis- 
appeared behind us. 

We were favored with friendly winds and an exceptionally 
quick and tranquil voyage. On Queen Victoria's birthday, 
which found us in mid-ocean, the ship spread all her bunting, 
bewildering in design and color, making her seem like a mam- 
moth butterfly skimming over the liquid prairies of the deep. 
In the evening, the passengers signalized their respect for the 
occasion by holding a banquet, with addresses and music. 

Probably all sea-voyagers are impressed with the loneliness 
of the ocean. It is the world's great desert. An occasional 
ship and a few acrobatic porpoises and sea-birds are almost the 

7 



3 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

only objects which vary the monotony of the wrinkled waste. 
To encounter, amidst this solitude, another vessel is quite an 
event. One fine evening the Richmond had a striking adven- 
ture of this kind, passing, at an apparent distance of but a few 
hundred yards, a three-masted ship, with every inch of canvas 
spread. Her crew cheered as the great steamer swept by, one 
of the sailors exuberantly swinging his boots over his head. 
Straightway the winged voyager passed out of hearing, and 
in a little while her white sails were shimmering in the even- 
ing sunlight, far away. So it is with wayfarers on the world's 
highways, whether on sea or land. 

Like pilgrims on the hills of life, 
"We cross each other, and are gone. 

Our approach to the coast of Ireland was made in the night- 
time, amidst a thick fog, which enshrouded the land and 
darkened the sea. At daylight nothing could be seen but 
misty reaches of sea-water, close by the ship, but towards noon 
the cumbrous folds of vapor parted, disclosing some fine 
headlands, with intervening meadows. 

During the afternoon the fog cleared away entirely, and the 
billows, breaking in spray against the Irish cliffs, flashed in 
the effulgence of an unclouded sun. Marvellous were the 
shades and combinations of color disclosed by this sudden 
revealment, as by drawn curtain, of the blended beauties of 
sea, sky, and land. The waves which dashed against the bow 
of the ship changed, in recoil, their light and deep greens 
into shades of blue of surpassing delicacy, fringed with snow- 
white foam. Equally pleasing to the eye were the verdurous 
meadows of the Irish coast, sloping down until blended with 
silvery volumes of rolling surf. 

At four in the afternoon the Richmond put into Queens- 
town harbor, in quitting which, an hour later, she passed the 
Indiana corning in with General Grant on board. As the two 



FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD. 9 

ships exchanged salutations, the passengers, gathered on their 
decks, broke into cheers. Next day the Lord Mayor of Liver- 
pool, as we landed there, came down to the docks with a 
numerous retinue, all in state carriages and gorgeous livery, to 
receive the illustrious American. The Indiana, following our 
steamer, was then momently expected in the Mersey. 

Our arrival in London happened to fall on the eve of Derby 
Day, when all England, so to speak, had come up for its 
annual holiday in the metropolis. Not one of the half-dozen 
or more hotels to which we had been recommended could 
receive us ; the pleasure-seeking country folk had taken 
possession of London. We were glad to accept, at last, some 
improvised apartments, on condition that they should be sur- 
rendered next day. The condition was remitted, finally, for 
an extortionate consideration, and the days of our sojourn in 
the world's chief city were spared for something more agree- 
able than a tour of its lodging-houses. 

Quitting London by a late afternoon steamer, we reached 
the open sea at nightfall, and early next morning were steam- 
ing up the wide and waveless Scheldt, rimmed with low, 
green dikes, along which groups of holiday-dressed peasants 
were passing. Under a cloudless sky we glided on over the 
placid waters until, rising on the distant edge of the far-reach- 
ing lowlands, the spire of the Antwerp Cathedral disclosed its 
pinnacle. The morning had not waned ere we quitted the 
steamer at her moorings and viewed the cathedral in full pro- 
file from the windows of our hotel apartments. 

There is an old Antwerp and a new, — the one a maze of 
crooked lanes, across which the projecting peaked gables 
almost touch ; the other a city of palaces, parks, and boule- 
vards. Over all, beautifying all, rises the majestic cathedral 
spire, — an architectural poem, — a perpetual delight. Its pro- 
portions with the rest of the structure are said to be out of 
harmony, but the incongruity is not so serious as to mar our 



10 EUROPEAN DAIS AND WAYS. 

enjoyment of an object in itself so superb. The tracery of 
this spire was compared by Napoleon to Mechlin lace, but 
without compare was the melody of its silver-toned carillon, 
falling in rhythmic showers on that tranquil Sunday morning. 

Low, and loud, and sweetly blended, 
Low at times, and loud at times, 
And changing like a poet's rhymes, 
Bang the beautiful wild chimes. 

A fortified city, famous in war and in statecraft, Antwerp 
nevertheless bestows more conspicuous veneration upon its artists 
than upon its soldiers or its statesmen. The finest memorials 
which adorn its public places are not of warriors, or diplomatists, 
but of the great master, Rubens, and his illustrious disciples, 
"Vandyke and Teniers. Indeed, the name and works of Rubens, 
it may almost be said, constitute the chief glory of Antwerp. 
The Museum contains his Crucifixion, — consummate in terrible 
sublimity, — his gorgeous Adoration of the Magi, and his dead 
Christ, known as the Christ db la Paille. His chair, even, is 
enshrined in a glass cabinet. His masterpiece, the Descent from 
the Cross, is preserved with pious care in the cathedral, where 
it is protected by a folding screen. His Elevation of the Cross, 
guarded in like manner, hangs on the wall opposite. His 
Scourging of Christ — a famous picture — is in the old Domin- 
ican chapel now known as the Church of St. Paul. The 
Church of St. Jacques contains one of his finest altar-pieces 
and his tomb. 

The railway from Antwerp to Cologne, via Liege, courses 
through an exquisitely beautiful country, of great historical 
interest. There is scarcely a town or a village on the route 
which does not suggest some classic reminiscence. Meehelen, 
still abounding in mediaeval architecture, traces its history back 
to the time of King Pepin, in the eighth century, and has been 
overrun again and again by the armies of Marlborough and 



FROM THE NEW WORLD TO THE OLD. \\ 

the invading French. The annals of Louvain, which claims 
Julius Caesar as its founder, are perspicuous as far back as the 
ninth century. Between Louvain and Landen — the birthplace 
of Pepin — lie the battle-fields of the Neerwinden plain, where 
the French were defeated in 1693 by William III. of Eng- 
land, and in 1793 by the Austrians. Near Tirleraont the 
Belgic Lion and Prussian monument on the field of Waterloo 
may be descried from the railway. Liege, founded in the 
sixth century, at the confluence of the Ourthe and the 
Meuse, amidst a circlet of beautiful hills, has acquired fame 
alike from history and from Sir Walter Scott's fiction. Dol- 
hain, the last Belgian station, was sacked at different times by 
the Emperor Henry V., by Louis XIV., and by Marlborough. 
Diiren was the Marcodurum of Tacitus. At Aix-la-Chapelle, 
anciently renowned for its thermal springs, near which was 
stationed the First Roman Legion, Charlemagne was born, 
died, and was entombed. There also, in the course of subse- 
quent centuries, thirty-seven successors of the great emperor 
were crowned. When his tomb was opened, in the year 1000, 
nearly two centuries after his interment, his body was found, 
still seated on its marble throne, and arrayed in its imperial 
robes. 

At Herbesthal, the first Prussian station, the train halts while 
the German customs officers inspect the baggage of passengers. 
A change of currency and of language takes place at this 
boundary town, after quitting which the eastward-going trav- 
eller must accustom himself to reiehsmark instead of francs, 
and to the German vocabulary in lieu of the French. 

While our train scuds swiftly over the alluvial plains of the 
Lower Rhine, about an hour after quitting Herbesthal, we 
descry the twin spires of the Cologne Cathedral, the pinnacles 
of which are yet blazing with the setting sun as we alight 
beneath their evening shadows. 

An ideal June day, radiant and gentle as could be, favored 



12 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

our voyage by Rhine steamer from Cologne to Mayence. 
Byron must have had just such a day and season in mind 
when, with not less truth than poetry of description, he wrote : 

The castled crag of Drachenfels 

Frowns o'er the wide and winding Khine, 
Whose breast of waters broadly swells 

Between the banks which bear the vine, — 
And hills all rich with blossomed trees, 

And fields which promise corn and wine, 
And scattered cities crowning these, 

Whose far white walls along them shine, 
Have strewed a scene which I should see 
With double joy, wert thou with me. 

And peasant girls with deep-blue eyes, 

And hands which offer yearly flowers, 
Walk smiling o'er this paradise ; 

Above, the frequent feudal towers 
Through green leaves lift their walls of gray, 

And many a rock which steeply lowers, 
And noble arch in proud decay, 

Look o'er this vale of vintage bowers. 

The Rhine steamers are swift travellers, make short stop- 
pages, and keep closely to their time schedules. Both deck 
and cabin are admirably arranged for observation of the 
scenery, than which there is none which affords a more pleas- 
ing or interesting epitome of the historic and legendary past. 

During the latter part of the afternoon our steamer — the 
Kaiser Wilhelm — emerged from the gorge at Bingen and 
passed Riidesheim, just above which the white-walled Schloss 
Johannisberg, crowning a distant height, came into view. The 
valley here widens out between lines of hills which gracefully 
recede on both sides of the river, the broad surface of which is 
clustered with small green islands. Through the Bingen gate- 
way we have entered the Garden of the Rhine, strewing 
which, along the river's margin, or back upon the hills, are 




ARIADNE. 
Dannecker. 



A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 13 

numerous villages and castles whose vintages have made their 
names known the world over. 

As we passed Eltville and Biebrich, the evening light was 
pouring in mellow splendors over the vine-clad hills, and 
burnishing the massive towers of the old cathedral at May- 
ence. The day and the river-voyage ended together as we 
touched the Mayence landing. Next morning we looked out, 
through a dripping atmosphere, on the quaint old Rossniarkt 
Square in Frankfort. 



CHAPTER II. 

A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 

There is no more fascinating old city in Europe than 
Frankfort-on-the-Main. The foreigners, not excepting Ameri- 
cans, who sojourn long within its precincts never fail to become 
its enthusiastic adorers. The Frankforters themselves regard 
it as such an excellent place to stay in that not many of them 
can be persuaded to leave it. There are not a few of its 
families whose perspicuous annals of residence extend back 
through a long line of ancestry for. two or three centuries. 
There are banks and other business houses whose present 
name and location have been continuous for one hundred to 
one hundred and fifty years. The city itself dates back to the 
time of Charlemagne. One of its stone bridges, spanning the 
river Main, is said to have been built five or six centuries ago. 
A legend tells us it was placed there by His Satanic Majesty, 
on a special contract with the city fathers that he should have 
the soul of the first creature that should pass over it. When 
it was finished, the shrewd Frankforters sent a rooster across 
it, thereby showing themselves smarter than the sly party of 
the second part. An image of the rooster, surmounting a pole 



14 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

set upon the bridge, commemorates the event and confirms 
the truth of the story. 

The foundation of the Frankfort Cathedral is traced to 
Charlemagne by some authorities, and by others to King 
Pepin. Within its walls many of the German emperors 
were crowned, beginning as far back as 1711. A few hun- 
dred yards from it stands the venerable Pomer, which is 
historically one of the most interesting buildings in Germany. 
The famous Golden Bull of Charles IV. is deposited among 
its archives ; the electors of the empire assembled, when a 
new emperor was to be chosen, within one of its chambers ; 
from its balcony the emperor-elect exhibited himself to the 
applauding multitudes, and in its grand saloon the coronation 
banquet was held. The full-size portraits of forty-eight 
German monarchs, painted in the costumes of their time, 
adorn this curious chamber. 

Around the walls of Frankfort swept the armies of Louis 
XIV. and of the great Napoleon. Here Louis the Pious 
lived and King Giinther died. Here, in one of the fantastic 
rookeries of the Judengasse, the Rothschilds laid the founda- 
tions of the most colossal fortune in the world. Here, in a 
narrow and crowded street, stands a comely old house with 
peaked gables and projecting stories, over whose portal we 
read the inscription : 

In diesem Hause 

wurde 

Johann Wolfgang Goethe, 

am 2Sten August, 174-9, geboren. 

In this building the great poet spent his infancy, and made 
the home of his boyhood and early manhood. Here, later in 
life, he was visited by Lavater, Basedow, and Klopstock, and 
here, as we wander about the curious old chambers, we recall 
the names of Marguerite and Maximiliane, of Bettina and 



A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 15 

Lili, of Sybilla Monch and Anna Schonernan, of — but the list 
is too long for repetition. Most of all are we reminded here 
of her whose Martha- Washington-like face appears in a por- 
trait on the wall, — the doting mother of the great Goethe. 
Of the spiritual presences within these old walls hers is the 
most palpable. Her illustrious son seldom dwelt in this house 
after the period of his early manhood, but here her faithful 
heart continued to beat in maternal fondness, until it ceased to 
beat, for her beloved Wolfgang. 

In an obscure little park, beside a narrow and remote street, 
in another part of the city, Goethe's mother lies buried. 
There is no monument over the grave, — nothing to distinguish 
it save a plain, weather-worn tablet, around which a few sprigs 
of ivy scramble. The spot was once a suburban church-yard, 
but the city swept over and far beyond it, and now only a few 
of the graves remain undisturbed. Unnoted, Goethe's mother 
sleeps there, while out in the grand area, around which the life 
and energy of the city course and pulsate, stands Sch wan thaler's 
splendid monument to her immortal son. 

Frankfort has no military fame like Mayence, Metz, Stras- 
bourg, or Antwerp. Though once a walled town, it was never 
a celebrated fortress. It has had its military vicissitudes, but 
they were not conspicuous. Goethe narrates in his autobiog- 
raphy that, during his boyhood, he once heard the trumpets 
sounding the alarm all day long from the watch-towers, as the 
French army approached and invested the town ; that after the 
city had yielded without resistance to the beleaguering army, 
one of the enemy's generals of division quartered himself and 
staff upon the poet's reluctant and indignant father ; and that 
he (young Goethe) turned the annoyance to good account by 
learning French from the unbidden guests. Other annals 
narrate that, a century and a half before this time, the army 
of Gustavus Adolphus appeared before the city, even then 
" opulent and populous," and demanded its surrender ; that 



IQ EUROPEAN DATS AND WATS. 

the wealthy burghers hesitated, but at last succumbed ; and 
that the triumphant battalions of the great Swede marched 
through the gates and unfurled the banners of Protestantism 
from the city's walls and pinnacles. 

Nearly two centuries later, Napoleon passed through Frank- 
fort on his way to conquest, and also on his flight from disaster ; 
and in one of the public gardens a tree is pointed out under 
which, as tradition runs, the great emperor, when at the zenith 
of his fame, once stood while his veteran legions passed in 
review before him. 

But Frankfort has always been a city of trade and finance, 
rather than one of military tastes and renown. Its wealth has 
been proverbial from its early history until now, and the 
assertion is made that, in proportion to population, its riches 
surpass those of any other city in the world. The Rothschilds, 
besides their great banking house, standing within a stone's- 
throw of the hovel where the family was founded, possess 
vast estates here, and the singular story is told that their 
first considerable gains were made with funds received and 
deposited by the Hessian government as the wages of its 
mercenaries in the attempted subjugation of the American 
Colonies. 

Many other families, both German and Jewish, possess 
enormous fortunes, and own or control financial, commercial, 
and industrial interests radiating to nearly every part of the 
civilized world. Of banking houses, properly so called, there 
is no unusual number, but the city abounds in dealers in all 
manner of securities, and its stock exchange is one of the 
most important in Europe. Its capitalists claim to have been 
the first to take the bonds of the United States offered abroad 
during our civil war, and there have been times when their 
holdings of those bonds amounted to not less than a hundred 
millions of dollars. They also deal enormously in the rail- 
way, State, and local securities of this country, and there is no 



A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 17 

city in Europe where all that pertains to American invest- 
ments is better understood than in Frankfort. Several of the 
foremost financiers have branch houses in New York, with 
which they are in daily communication by cable. American 
investments are the favorites, particularly our national bonds, 
which are preferred even to those of Germany or Great 
Britain, but all the European loans are placed more or less 
through Frankfort agencies. It is a notable fact that many 
of the houses which have acquired great wealth in this busi- 
ness are those of Hebrews, who now live in princely elegance, 
although it is less than a century since all of that race dwell- 
ing in Frankfort were obliged to inhabit the hovels of the 
Judengasse, and were locked up at night in that narrow and 
odious quarter. 

The ancient portions of Frankfort are poetically quaint. 
The narrow, meandering streets, overhung by projecting 
stories and lofty, peaked gables, are bewildering to the 
stranger. But all the thoroughfares, however irregular, are 
kept scrupulously clean ; the sewerage system is superb ; and 
the houses are painted in harmonious neutral colors, pleasant 
to the eye, so that even the older structures, some of which 
have existed without substantial change for seven or eight 
centuries, look comparatively fresh and tidy. Around the 
public square known as the Romerberg, fronting the Homer, 
stands a cluster of these ancient buildings, such as Ruskin 
might be supposed to describe when he says that " the glory 
of a human structure is not in its stones nor its gold, but in 
its age, and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watch- 
ing, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or con- 
demnation which we feel in walls that have been long washed 
by the passing waves of humanity." 

But Frankfort is by no means all ancient. The West End, 
as it is called, is mostly new, and is a town of palaces. Half 
the rickety old hovels of the Judengasse have been torn away, 
b 2* 



13 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

and many other primitive streets have been partly or wholly 
obliterated. Two splendid new bridges have been thrown 
across the Main, a grand opera-house rivalling that of Paris 
in the beauty and completeness of its appointments has been 
built, a system of sluice- ways by which the Main has been 
made navigable by Rhine steamers from Mayence to Frank- 
fort has been constructed, and a union railway-station build- 
ing, not surpassed except in size by any other on the Continent, 
has recently been completed. A large and elegant hotel, a 
museum and academy of art, a new exchange, and several 
large school buildings, all costly and beautiful structures, are 
among the later improvements. 

Much is done for the general comfort and recreation of the 
people, and this is in nothing more conspicuous than in the 
public gardens and promenades. Most all German cities have 
such places of resort, but in few cities of any country are they 
so attractive and convenient as in Frankfort. On the site of 
the ancient walls, which have been torn away, and of the 
moat, which has been filled up, a series of connecting parks 
has been laid out encircling the old town, and lying nearly 
equidistant from the city's present centre and circumference. 
An American lady who well knows the Anlage, as this popular 
pleasure-ground is called, thus describes for me some of its 
attractions : 

" One of its principal adornments is its trees. In the first 
place, besides being luxuriantly grown and leaved, they are 
all knotted and gnarled as fantastically as if they had grown 
so of their own volition, and not of the landscapist's. Nearly 
the whole tree is draped with light-green moss, which velvet 
may resemble but cannot rival. Even in winter, when the 
leaves are gone, it is delightful to look upon these venerable 
stems, with their interlacement of brown and green branches 
silhouetted against the sky. 

" The Anlage abounds also in lakes, fountains, rustic bridges, 



A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 19 

and sequestered nooks, where one may while away the summer 
hours watching the shadows creeping up and down the sand. 
The lakes are stocked with goldfish, which the children feed, 
and which everybody stops to admire. Then there are milk 
and refreshment booths, wells of pure cold water,* and plenty 
of comfortable benches for tired and loitering pedestrians. A 
large proportion of the visitors are working people, who try 
to pass through the Anlage while going to and from their labor, 
or to enjoy an hour's stroll in it on Sunday afternoons. Here, 
also, the children and their nurses come, and the little ones 
make themselves happy, playing in the sand-heaps." 

The Palmengarten is above all else the pride of Frankfort. 
When the Duke of Nassau — an active sympathizer with the 
beaten side in the Austro-Prussian war — lost his dominions, 
and quitted his famous chateau at Biebrich, the Frankforters 
availed themselves of the opportunity to buy his entire collec- 
tion of rare and costly plants, comprising about thirty thou- 
sand specimens. They then erected a mammoth conservatory 
of glass, with an elegant and commodious music- and dining- 
hall attached, and adorned the adjacent grounds with fountains, 
lakes, parterres, promenades, and all things beautiful, making, 
altogether, one of the loveliest spots in Europe. Scientific 
gardeners are .regularly salaried and employed to keep the 
place in order, whose assiduity and skill impart to it such in- 
genuity of color and arrangement as a practised artist bestows 
upon the labor of his heart. In truth their handiwork is, in 
its way, artistic. In fine weather an orchestra plays in a 
pavilion in the garden, and at other times in the spacious 
concert-room. This apartment looks directly into the great 



* In one of the parks of the Anlage, near its junction with the Main- 
zerlandstrasse, is located one of these wells, containing a primitive pump 
worked by a long iron handle, and surmounted by the bust of a laughing 
Bacchus. 



20 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

conservatory, which presents a scene of tropical enchantment. 
Five large palm-trees, imported by Humboldt, occupy con- 
spicuous positions amidst skilfully-grouped dracsenas, ferns, 
azaleas, rhododendrons, passifloras, and a myriad of other 
rare tropical and semi-tropical growths. The ground is car- 
peted with light-green moss, smooth and soft as velvet, and 
moistened by the spray of falling waters. 

Another popular place of resort, scarcely less attractive, is 
the Zoological Garden, containing a splendid music-hall in 
which daily concerts are given, an aquarium, and a large col- 
lection of rare specimens of the animal kingdom. 

To the enjoyment of parks, promenades, and general out- 
door amusement the moderate and equable climate of Central 
Germany is particularly gracious. The city of Frankfort, 
though in about the same latitude as Montreal, lies upon a 
very different isothermal line. Screened by the Taunus 
Mountains from the cold winds of the North Sea, it is at the 
same time sufficiently remote from the Alps to escape the vio- 
lent atmospheric changes common to South Germany. Snow 
generally falls at Dresden, and also in the Black Forest, two 
or three weeks earlier than at Frankfort. In summer the 
heat is seldom oppressive, or of long duration, and the nights 
are always sufficiently cool to insure comfortable sleep. The 
winters are usually mild and open. In all seasons a great deal 
of rain falls, and unclouded skies are exceptional. An atmos- 
phere perfectly pellucid and crystalline, with that resulting 
" divine splendor of the fields" which Virgil speaks of, is not 
known in Germany as it is upon our Western Continent. It 
came within the observation of the writer that the month of 
July, at Frankfort, contained, one year, but seven days with- 
out rain, and none at all that were cloudless. 

In the Main Valley the soil is light and sandy, and evapo- 
ration is rapid. The local physicians say that moist weather 
is healthier than dry, because, by saturating the porous earth, 



A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 21 

it prevents the exhalation of injurious vapors and secures a 
purer atmosphere. At any rate, the people do not seem to 
mind the rain, but rather to enjoy all the more on account of 
it their habits of out-door life. It is believed that the hu- 
midity of the atmosphere is favorable to corpulency, and no 
doubt to this cause, rather than, as commonly supposed, to the 
practice of beer-drinking, are due the full habit and tranquil 
temperament of the Germans. 

The Frankforters possess, in its fullest degree, the German 
passion for art and music. They have among them several 
artists of wide celebrity, and also an art society of long 
standing, which maintains a permanent exhibition and weekly 
sale of contemporary paintings. The new Art Academy, 
known from its founder as the Stadel'sche Institute, and occu- 
pying a commanding site on the left bank of the Main, is 
richly endowed, and possesses many rare and celebrated works. 
A collection of sculptures and casts, privately belonging to the 
Baron von Bethmann, but easily accessible to visitors, derives 
its name — the Ariadneum — from Dannecker's Ariadne and 
the Lioness, an exquisite work, worthy to rank with the 
finest antiques. The figures — representing Ariadne reclining 
upon the lioness's back— are wrought, life-size, from a single 
block of Carrara marble, and cost the artist seven years of 
continuous study and labor. Had he expended upon them his 
whole lifetime, he might still have died content with the 
product of his genius. 

Not famous, like Dresden or Stuttgart, for its musical 
advantages, Frankfort nevertheless enjoys the best music of 
the period. Its conservatorium, in whose calendar of instruc- 
tors we find such names as those of Stockhausen, Raff, 
and Clara Schumann (widow of the great composer), has 
achieved wide reputation. The opera, subsidized by the 
government, is of the highest order of merit. The museum 
concerts, given bi-weekly during the winter, attract the co- 



22 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

operation of the best vocalists and instrumentalists in Eu- 
rope, and are scarcely surpassed in any German city. The 
orchestra, containing about seventy performers, is extraordi- 
nary in its thoroughness of training and nicety of execution. 
Its interpretations of Beethoven, Mozart, and other great 
composers would be famous in any country less musical than 
Germany. 

Scarcely less interesting than the music are the people who 
attend these concerts. The museum, as the concert-hall is 
called, is a model of comfort, convenience, and acoustic excel- 
lence, and not one of its fifteen hundred seats ever remains 
untaken. Hither come the wealthy, the refined, and those of 
all conditions who have a taste for the higher order of musical 
art, and among them all there is perceptibly no rude, ill- 
behaved, or obtrusive person. The entire audience gives its 
undivided attention to the music, and neither entertainers nor 
entertained will tolerate interruption. If the leader of the 
orchestra overhears conversation, he will immediately face the 
disturbers and throw up his baton. 

The new Opera-House bears upon its front the inscription, 
Dem Wahren, Sehonen, Guten, and it is an offering nobly 
conceived as well as nobly dedicated. It was built by joint 
funds of the municipality and of wealthy citizens, and contains 
seats for two thousand persons. As a precaution against fire, 
its Coulissenhause, or magazine for stage scenery, is built sepa- 
rately, at a considerable distance from the main building, with 
which it communicates by a surface tramway, and also by 
underground passages. The apparatus for heating, cooling, 
ventilating, and illuminating the building centres in the three- 
story basement — where its motive power is located — and per- 
forms its functions with marvellous perfection. Pure air, 
drawn from the neighboring Anlage, is heated in winter, or 
cooled in summer, and circulated with the most careful ad- 
justment of temperature to every nook and corner of the 



A WINSOME GERMAN CITY. 23 

building. From his position in the basement, the engineer 
advises himself by an electric contrivance of the exact state of 
the atmosphere, both as to purity and temperature, in every 
corridor, lodge, and chamber, and is able, by the apparatus 
at his command, to correct immediately any improper at- 
mospheric condition in any part of the building. It has 
been said that the Frankforters go to the opera for hygienic 
benefit as well as for amusement, and that they find there 
a refuge alike from the asperities of winter and the heat of 
summer. 

The precautions for the safety of the audience are equally 
complete. During a performance, a corps of trained and 
vigilant firemen is constantly on the watch, prepared to flood 
instantaneously any part of the building where fire may 
appear, and such are the means of exit that the entire audi- 
torium may be vacated in five minutes. Meanwhile, by the 
drop of an iron screen, the stage may, in an instant, be com- 
pletely isolated from the remaining interior. 

So perfect is the system of electric signals, that the actors 
are summoned by it to their places in the play, and the leader 
of the orchestra duplicates, by some electric magic, the strokes 
of his baton to the chorus behind the scenes. 

The leading actors are of the first professional merit, 
and, being engaged for a term of years, become locally ac- 
quainted and enjoy, like the military, the highest social privi- 
leges. 

The subvention to the opera is paid from the municipal 
treasury, and may reach, but not exceed, the sum of twenty- 
five thousand dollars per annum. An equal expenditure of 
money could scarcely be better made for the wholesome recrea- 
tion of the people. 

The people of Frankfort enjoy their opera and are proud 
of its splendid temple, as they have good reason to be. In its 
interior and exterior elegance, and in the excellence of its 



24 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

appointments, from its subterranean mechanism to the winged 
hippogriff upon the crown of its pediment, it is a princely 
testimonial to their good taste, and emblem of their refinement. 



CHAPTER III. 

GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. 

The extraordinary honors paid to General Grant in Eng- 
land created a profound impression all over Europe. No 
other American, and indeed few Europeans, had ever received 
such honors abroad, and the case was made still more ex- 
ceptional by the fact that this great distinction was paid to no 
potentate or representative of political power, but to a plain 
private citizen, holding no rank or official position. 

As soon as it was known that General Grant intended to 
travel on the Continent, he was invited to visit Frankfort-on- 
the-Main. The invitation was extended by the American 
residents of that city, and was accepted. A joint meeting of 
these Americans, and of prominent burghers of the city, was 
then held, and a committee was appointed, half Germans and 
half Americans, to make arrangements for the reception and 
entertainment of General Grant and his party. Mr. Henry 
Seligman, an American banker of Frankfort, and the writer 
were delegated to intercept the distinguished tourist on his 
journey up the Rhine, and conduct him to the city. 

It was upon a radiant summer morning that we quitted 
Frankfort on this mission. General Grant was at Bingen, 
where he had arrived the evening before from Cologne. He 
was accompanied by Mrs. Grant, his son Jesse Grant, and 
General Adam Badeau, Consul-General at London. Their 



GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. 25 

arrival at Bingen had been so unostentatious that their presence 
in the town was scarcely known outside of the hotel in which 
they had taken rooms. Their departure was alike unnoticed. 

Our train drew up at Bingen just as a special schnellzug, 
with the Emperor of Germany on board, swept past the town 
without stopping. Proceeding at once to the hotel, we learned 
that General Grant had already left for Riklesheim, but had 
possibly not yet crossed the river. We hastened to the land- 
ing, and there found him and his party seated under some 
linden-trees, waiting for the ferry. I had a package of letters 
for the general which had come to my care, and which, after 
mutual introductions, I delivered to him at once. Tearing 
open and throwing away the envelopes until the ground 
around him was littered with them, General Grant hastily 
inspected the letters and passed them to General Badeau. By 
this time the Riidesheim steamer had arrived, and we all went 
on board. In a moment more the boat pushed off and turned 
its course up the stately river. The rippling waters sparkled 
in the sunshine, and all the vine-clad hills were dressed in the 
emerald bravery of summer. On the right, dropping behind 
us, was Bingen, famous in legend and in song, while on the left, 
in the foreground, appeared the clustered, red-tiled gables of 
Riidesheim. Upon the summit of a commanding bluff which 
rises on the right bank of the river, and which was passed 
by our steamer, now stands the great National Monument, 
since erected as a war memorial of the completed political 
unity of the German states. 

From Riidesheim to Wiesbaden, where General Grant 
desired to make his next halt, the railway follows the Rhine 
as far as Castel, opposite Mayence. We had but a few 
minutes to wait for our train, and were soon bowl ins; alons:, 
with the bluffs and blossoming fields of the Rheingau on the 
one hand, and the bright river on the other. While we were 
discussing the various objects of interest, and the topics which 
b 3 



26 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

they suggested, General Badeau discovered by accident among 
the letters which General Grant had given him one which had 
not been opened. 

" The address is in the handwriting of General Sherman," 
said Badeau. 

" Yes," said Grant, glancing at the superscription, " that is 
from Sherman. Read it." 

Accordingly, General Badeau read the letter, which we all 
listened to, deeply impressed with the cordiality of its expres- 
sions. In heartiest terms the writer felicitated General Grant 
upon the splendid reception which had been given him, and 
the merited appreciation awarded him in the Old World. 
The letter was that of an admiring and devoted friend rather 
than that of a military colleague. 

" General Sherman seems to have a strong personal regard 
for you, general," remarked one of the party. 

" Yes," responded General Grant, " there has always been 
the best of feeling between Sherman and myself, although at- 
tempts have not been wanting to make it appear otherwise." 

" I have noticed such attempts," replied the person addressed, 
" but for my part I have never needed any proof that they 
were wholly uncalled for and impertinent. 

" Possibly you have never heard, general," continued the 
speaker, " how heartily General Sherman rejoiced over your 
capture of Lee and his army. I happened to be a member 
of Sherman's command at the time when the news reached 
him at Goldsboro' that you had broken the Confederate lines 
before Petersburg, and I can testify that he was particularly 
gratified that he had not been obliged to make any move- 
ment that would have given a pretext for saying that your 
success was due in part to him. To those about him he ex- 
claimed, in his energetic way, — 

" ' I knew Grant would do it, for I know the man. And 
I'm glad that he accomplished it without my help. Nobody 



GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. 27 

can say now that I have divided with him the credit of this 
success. He has deserved it all, he has gained it all, and I'm 
glad that he will have it all.' " 

About noon the party arrived at Wiesbaden, where nobody 
seemed to expect them except the people at the hotel where 
General Grant's courier had engaged rooms. After dinner 
Mr. Seligmau desired to tender a drive to the general and 
Mrs. Grant, but they had disappeared. After a short search 
we found them sitting together alone in one of the arboreal 
retreats of the Kurgarten. The general remarked that it was 
his custom when he visited a city to explore it on foot, and 
that in this way he had already made himself tolerably famil- 
iar, he thought, with the general plan and topography of 
Wiesbaden. Mr. Seligman's invitation was readily accepted, 
however, and half an hour later the party set out, in a carriage, 
for the Russian Chapel. 

Wiesbaden is one of the most ancient watering-places on 
the Continent. It was a Roman military station, bearing wit- 
ness to which the Heidenberg — a neighboring eminence — still 
shows the traces of a Roman fortress. The remains of Roman 
baths and a temple have also been found in the vicinity, and 
the waters are mentioned by Pliny. Under the name of Wisi- 
bad the Carlovingian monarchs established at Wiesbaden an im- 
perial residence. The city lies under the southern slope of the 
Taunus Mountains, the rocky recesses of which conceal the 
mysteries of its thermal springs. The hilly country for miles 
around abounds in charming pleasure-grounds, drives, and 
promenades. The gilded palaces which were formerly used as 
fashionable gambling-houses are now devoted to the social and 
musical recreation of visitors who come to take the waters. 

The drive to the Russian Chapel ascends the Taunus Moun- 
tain by a winding road, amidst stately, well-kept forests of 
beech and chestnut. The chapel, whose gilded domes can be 
seen from afar, stands upon one of the most salient mountain 



28 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

spurs, and overlooks the country as far as Mayence and the 
Odenwald. It was erected by the Duke of Nassau as a me- 
morial to his deceased first wife, who was a beautiful young 
Russian princess. Upon her tomb, which adorns the interior, 
her life-size effigy reclines in pure white marble. 

General Grant lingered for some time at this place, and from 
the promontory ou which the chapel stands contemplated with 
deep interest the far-reaching, historic scenes of the Rhine 
Valley. 

Next morning the general and his party arrived at Frank- 
fort, where they were met by the reception committee, and 
conducted to the principal places of interest. Among the es- 
tablishments visited were some of the large wine-cellars, and 
also Henninger's great brewery, through the immense crypts 
of which General Grant was conducted. As he was about to 
leave Henninger's he was requested to write his name in the 
visitor's register, which was ruled with spaces entitled re- 
spectively " name," "residence," and "occupation." Grant 
promptly put down his name and place of residence, but when 
he came to the "occupation" column he hesitated. "What 
shall I write here?" he inquired, — "loafer?" 

This remark was made in jest, and yet not without a certain 
sadness of tone and manner. Undoubtedly General Grant 
felt keenly the irksomeness of having nothing particular to do. 
After the immense strain which had been- put upon him for 
twelve successive years, it was not easy for him to reconcile 
himself, in the prime of his manhood and the full maturity of 
his powers, to being a mere spectator of the affairs of men. 
Activity had become a second nature to him, and idleness was 
simply intolerable. With much leisure on his hands, he first 
sought rest and recreation, and then occupation. However 
unfortunately his business undertakings resulted, they were, 
after all, but the outcome of a natural and laudable desire to 
be usefully employed. 



GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. 29 

To many people General Grant seemed to be a very taciturn 
man, having little inclination or capacity for conversation. 
But no judgment of him could be more erroneous, as many 
persons who conversed with him during his sojourn at Frank- 
fort can attest. He knew how to keep silent, and he also knew 
how to make himself extremely entertaining whenever he 
deemed it prudent to express his ideas freely. A very distin- 
guished leader of the Democratic party whom I had the honor 
to meet in Frankfort, subsequent to # General Grant's visit, in- 
formed me that he had travelled with him in Russia, had con- 
versed with him a great deal, and had been astonished, not 
only at his conversational power, but at the extent and 
accuracy of his information, particularly in regard to every- 
thing pertaining to commerce between the United States and 
the different countries of Europe. " The general seems to 
have been an extremely careful student of these matters," said 
my mformant, "and I was the more surprised at this because 
I had formed an altogether different idea of his character. 
Since I have met him and talked with him," added this 
Democratic leader, " I regard him as one of the greatest men 
of his age, — although I had before thought of him very differ- 
ently, — and I now heartily wish that he might be President 
again. I doubt whether we have another man, of either party, 
capable of governing the country so wisely and so well." 

The banquet given to General Grant by the citizens and 
resident Americans of Frankfort was a superb affair. It was 
spread in the music-hall of the Palmengarten, where the illus- 
trious guest was seated fronting the tropical enchantment of the 
grand conservatory already described. The conservatory and 
hall were brilliantly illuminated, the tables were resplendent 
with silver and floral decorations, and upon the walls of the 
banquet-chamber the national emblems of the Great Republic 
and the Great Empire were suggestively displayed side by side. 
Ladies were admitted to the galleries, but gentlemen only 

3* 



30 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

were seated at the tables, around which were gathered some 
hundreds of the most prominent bankers and merchants of 
Germany, including capitalists who had been the first in Eu- 
rope to invest in the war-loans offered by our government. 

The dinner lasted three hours. Between the courses the 
orchestra played our national airs, and various toasts were 
drunk, a venerable burgher of Frankfort proposing the health 
of General Grant, to which the general responded in a brief, 
sensible, and somewhat humorous speech, which was exceed- 
ingly well received. 

Outside the building the scene was scarcely less animated or 
interesting than within. By the aid of colored lights and other 
pyrotechnic contrivances the garden was made brilliant and 
gay as an Arabian Nights dream. The atmosphere was per- 
fumed with the aroma of flowers and filmy with the mist of 
fountains. Thousands of people, elegantly dressed, were seated 
on the out-door terraces enjoying the fireworks and music, 
while in the promenades other thousands were moving ob- 
jects in a kaleidoscope combination of light and color. For 
some time after the banquet General Grant sat upon the 
veranda of the music-hall conversing with friends and enjoy- 
ing this novel scene. His presence excited no rude curiosity 
or boisterous enthusiasm, but was none the less honored by 
more subdued and decorous demonstrations of respect. 

The next day General Grant drove to Horn burg, fifteen 
miles, and thence four miles farther to the Saalburg, which is 
the name given to the site of an ancient Roman fortification 
on the Taunus Mountains. The circumvallation laid out here 
is supposed to have been the work of Drusus, and was one of 
a series of defensive stations covering the frontier of the Roman 
Empire from the Rhine to the Danube. The exhumations at 
this fortified camp, first attempted within a recent period, have 
disclosed the most complete Roman castrametation in Ger- 
many. The castellum is a rectangle, four hundred and sixty- 



GENERAL GRANT AT FRANKFORT. 31 

five by seven hundred and four feet^ and is surrounded by 
two deep ditches and by high parapets. Within this enclosure 
the praetorium, or residence of the commandant, one hundred 
and thirty-two by one hundred and fifty-three feet, has been 
distinctly traced by its stone foundations. Stones marked 
with Roman characters yet remain where they were anciently 
planted, designating the camps of the different legions. This 
fort is mentioned by Tacitus, and was one of the principal 
bulwarks of the Roman conquest in Germany against the wild 
tribes which hovered along its northern frontier. 

The excavations were still in progress at the time of Gen- 
eral Grant's visit, and on that very occasion some interesting 
relics were unearthed. Mrs. Grant was presented with a ring 
and some pieces of ancient pottery, which were removed in 
her presence from the places where they had lain embedded 
in the earth during the last eighteen hundred years. 

Near the fort was discovered, some years ago, the cemetery 
where the ashes of the deceased Romans of the garrison were 
interred. Some of the graves which had never before been 
disturbed were opened in General Grant's presence, in order 
that he might see with his own eyes what they contained, and 
in what manner their contents were deposited. From each 
grave a small urn was taken, containing the ashes of one cre- 
mated human body, and upon the mouth of the urn was 
found, in each instance, a Roman obolus, which had been 
deposited there to pay the ferriage of the soul of the departed 
over the Stygian river. General Grant was presented with 
some of these coins as mementos of his visit. 

On his return to Homburg the ensuing evening, the general 
was banqueted by a party of Americans, and a splendid illu- 
mination of the Kurgarten was given in his honor. The next 
day he returned to Frankfort, and the next departed by rail for 
Heidelberg and Switzerland. 



32 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 



CHAPTER IY. 

WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 

Evolution of the German State. ' 

Ox a propitious clay in September, 1877, the autumn 
manoeuvres of the German Cavalry Corps took place near 
Griesheim, a village of Hesse-Darmstadt. At a preconcerted 
signal about thirty thousand troops deployed under the eyes 
of the emperor, the crown prince, and Count Von Moltke, 
and executed with realistic zeal the evolutions of mimic war. 

The emperor, then eighty-one years of age, viewed the move- 
ments on horseback, and when the simulated conflict neared 
its crisis, stationed himself, in advance of his attendants, on 
the brow of a commanding hill. Thus elevated and isolated, 
his stalwart figure, helmeted, uniformed, and mounted on a 
noble steed, stood forth, motionless and majestic, like some 
plastic ideal of an imperial military leader and ruler. 

The apparition was prophetic. Such will be the character 
and prominence of that figure in history. 

The career of William I., Emperor of Germany, is unique 
and unparalleled. Scarcely any other age than this age, or 
any other country than Germany, could have produced it. 
Carlyle speaks of Frederick the Great as a result achieved by 
the Prussian people. " There are nations," he says, " in which a 
Friedrich is or can be possible, and, again, there are nations in 
which he is not, and cannot." So of William I. He was a 
result which the German people achieved, and such as perhaps 
they alone could achieve. But it was not by voluntary fiat 
that they produced him. He came by long process of political 
and social evolution. Germany had been preparing for him 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 33 

— producing him, we might say — for ten centuries, and, as if 
in requital of this, he spent more than sixty years of his life 
in preparing for Germany. Not until he ascended the throne 
of Prussia, at the age of sixty-four, may he be said to have 
begun that part of his career which made him illustrious. 

Although not a product of the French Revolution, he was 
its immediate sequence, and the course of his life is closely 
associated with its consequences and effects in Continental 
Europe. By the events of which the Revolution was the 
direct or efficient cause, he was schooled for the events. in 
which he was to be a leading actor. The political and social 
conditions upon which the revolutionary impulse took hold in 
Germany were the conditions under which he was born, grew 
up to manhood, and developed the principal aim of his life. 
In order to form a just estimate of his character and achieve- 
ments it is necessary to consider what those conditions were. 

At the beginning of the revolutionary period, Germany, no 
less than France, rested under the blighting incubus of the old 
regime. Although partially uprooted in Prussia during the 
volcanic career of Frederick the Great, that regime spread its 
paralyzing influence like a corroding fungus over the entire 
surface of German society. After the death of Frederick it 
had become prevalent again even in Prussia. In Germany, 
as in France, it was a regime of political imbecility and mis- 
rule, rooted and nourished in the lingering decay of the Middle 
Ages. In Germany it produced ultra particularism ; in France, 
anarchy. Frande rid herself of it by revolution, Germany by 
evolution. 

The old regime of Germany was the offspring of dynastic 
delusion. When, on Christmas day of the year 800, Pope 
Leo III. placed a splendid crown on the head of Charlemagne, 
and proclaimed him the successor of Coustantine, that delusion 
began. It was the delusion of the so-called Holy Roman 
Empire. For seven hundred years the resources of Germany 



34 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

were squandered by her rulers in profitless efforts to maintain 
that imperial fiction. While they were pursuing its illusive 
shadows of dominion abroad, they neglected to rule at home, 
and were vexed by domestic dissension and revolt. The 
abuses of local government became intolerable, and produced 
an insurrection of the peasantry equalled in blind atrocity only 
by the Reign of Terror. Then followed the prolonged and 
unspeakable scourge of the Thirty Years' War, during which 
the whole country was devastated, and two-thirds of the Ger- 
man people perished by famine, pestilence, and the sword. 
Meanwhile the imperial authority became utterly puerile, 
and Germany was converted into a multitude of petty despot- 
isms, whose rulers were practically absolute. The contentions 
of these little sovereignties, diligently fomented from abroad, 
kept the whole country in turmoil. While other nations were 
crystallizing and consolidating, the German people were being 
more and more distracted by disuniting forces. 

Thus the German states were trained for centuries in a 
school of discord. Their differences of custom, language, and 
religion became strongly marked, and their provincial preju- 
dices almost insurmountable. The boundaries of the empire 
were immensely reduced, and North Germany, at least, would 
probably have shared the fate of Poland but for the rise of 
Prussia. The growth of that powerful kingdom is a striking 
example of the political survival of the fittest. As the Os- 
cans and Sabellians, descending from the Apennines and sub- 
duing the weaker tribes of the plains, founded the nucleus of 
the Roman state, so the Hohenzollern princes, descending 
from their castle on the Alps, became masters of Branden- 
burg, and by their superior valor and sagacity established the 
nucleus of a German renascence. 

But while Prussia gained predominance in the north, Aus- 
tria became equally powerful in the south, and fresh discord 
arose from the rivalry of these two leading states for the 



WILLIAM L, KING OF PRUSSIA. 35 

palm of national leadership. Thus Germany became, during 
the latter part of the last century, a hideous nest of conten- 
tions, wherein two powerful sovereignties strove with each 
other for the favor of a multitude of petty ones, and all were 
played upon as pawns by foreign intrigue. At the same time 
the " Holy Roman Empire" had become a political jest, and 
the imperial authority but a shadowy appanage of the Aus- 
trian crown. 

Such was the condition of things in Germany when, from 
the bloody travail of the French Revolution, a mighty force 
was projected which, bursting like a tormented lion from its 
confines, swept away a multitude of the political impostures 
and dwarfish despotisms of the period. The impersonation 
of that force was Napoleon Bonaparte, whose mission it was 
to teach Europe the difference between practical realities and 
traditional shams, between hereditary imbecility and robust, 
self-reliant manhood. If Napoleon humiliated Germany and, 
in a military sense, well-nigh destroyed her, he also revealed 
to her the prodigious folly of her domestic dissensions, gave 
her a new and better system of laws, and greatly mitigated 
the abuse of her old regime. More important still, he began 
the work of reintegrating the petty fractions into which her 
political integers had been broken, and thereby, although not 
by intention, revived the desire and hope of her people for 
complete national union. 

It was on the eve of the events which inspired this hope that 
the great leader at whose hands it was destined to be realized 
came into the world. That predestined leader, Prince William, 
the future Emperor William I., was born at Berlin, March 22, 
1797. His grandfather, King Frederick William II., was then 
the reigning Prussian sovereign. Before the year of his birth 
had ended, his father, the Crown Prince of Prussia, ascended the 
throne as Frederick William III. His elder brother afterwards 
succeeded his father as King Frederick William IV. His 



36 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

mother, the crown princess, was the beautiful Princess 
Louisa, of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. 

At the time of the birth of this young prince all Europe 
was at war. The mailed hand was the hand that ruled, and 
the statesman's craft was well-nigh lost amidst the clash of 
arms. France, under the Directory, stood alone against a 
vast coalition of European states, with Austria at its head. 
To this coalition Prussia, under the weak and nerveless leader- 
ship of Frederick William II., was giving a reluctant and 
half-hearted yet most imprudent support. The revolutionary 
army under Napoleon had completely vanquished the Aus- 
trians in Italy, captured Trieste, and carried the war into 
Austria itself. In the train of these successes, Venice capitu- 
lated to the French, Genoa was revolutionized, and a republic 
of the North Italian states was proclaimed. Austria, brought 
to the feet of Napoleon, relinquished her possessions in the 
Netherlands, and ceded the whole left bank of the Rhine to 
France. Such were the preliminary results, in this century, 
of Austria's aspirations to German leadership. 

The young Prince William became thoroughly infused — 
what mettlesome prince would not be ? — with the military 
spirit of this stormy period. There is an old adage that a 
Prussian prince " is born in a gorget and dies in a helmet;" 
and the future Emperor of Germany received, almost from 
babyhood, the strict military training which is traditional with 
his family. Possibly this training had something to do with 
his physical robustness in after-years, for he was born feeble 
and delicate, and his growth was tardy. His elder brother 
was much stronger, and apparently had a much firmer hold 
on life than himself; but the military passion of William 
was by far the more ardent. To become a master in the art 
of war was the first and perhaps the strongest ambition of his 
life. 

Some charming illustrations of this are seen among the an- 



WILLIAM /., KING OF PRUSSIA. 37 

cestral paintings belonging to the royal family of Prussia. 
In one of them King Frederick William III. and his wife, 
as Queen Louisa loved to call herself, are represented en 
famille, surrounded by their children. The infant Princess 
Charlotte — future Empress of Russia— is held in the arms of 
the queen ; the boy crown prince, later King Frederick Wil- 
liam IV., rests, picture-book in hand, upon his father's knee, 
while the little Wilhelm, standing proudly erect on the sofa, 
grasps his toy sabre, and bears aloft the ensign of Prussia. 

In another of these pictures the veteran Bennstein, of the 
Guards, booted, cockaded, and bewigged, is seen instructing 
Prince William, with his brother and cousin, in the stiff- 
legged, cadenced step of the Prussian infantry. With Benn- 
stein striding backward before them, the three boys march 
around a room in the Potsdam palace, where testy old Fred- 
erick William's giant grenadiers look down, in full-length 
portraiture, from the walls. 

In a third picture the boy-prince William is presented to 
us in the full bravery of a hussar's uniform, given him as a 
Christmas present. The moment when he first donned this 
uniform, we are told, was one of the proudest of his whole 
life. 

While the young prince was receiving his military training, 
his moral and scientific education was diligently cared for by 
the learned and pious Delbriick, of Magdeburg. But another 
school now began to mould his mind and character more than 
all, — the school of events. Like most other Prussians, he had 
imbibed the idea that the army and kingdom created by Fred- 
erick the Great were invincible. Both were on the eve of 
overwhelming disaster. Coalition after coalition of European 
powers had rushed upon France, and been repelled and dis- 
comfited. As the first of these leagues had perished at Areola, 
and the second at Marengo and Hohenlinden, so the third had 
gone down at Ulm and Austerlitz. England, Austria, Russia, 

4 



38 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

and Sweden combined had failed to withstand the all-conquer- 
ing Corsican. By her overthrow at Austerlitz, Austria lost 
the imperial sceptre, and the Holy Roman Empire, after an 
existence of ten hundred and six years, was finally dissolved. 
Thus deprived of all control or leadership, the minor German 
sovereignties were wrought upon by the deft diplomacy of 
Talleyrand, the Rhine Confederation was formed, and sixteen 
million Germans gave their allegiance to France. 

At this crisis Prussia committed the supreme folly of pre- 
cipitating armed conclusions with Napoleon. Her armies had 
for forty years experienced no serious war. Schooled in the 
tactics and vain of the prestige of the great Frederick, they 
had gained no practical knowledge of the changes which the 
wars of the Revolution had wrought in the European military 
system. In the autumn of 1806, Prussia's active force, one 
hundred and eighty thousand strong, marched out to meet one 
hundred and ninety thousand veterans of the campaigns in 
Italy, Austria, and Egypt, and in less than one month that 
force was annihilated. From the disastrous fields of Auerstadt 
and Jena it fled routed and dismayed, only to be hunted down 
in fragments by the swift squadrons of Murat and the fleet- 
footed battalions of Ney and Lannes. Obliged to take flighty 
from Berlin, Queen Louisa was rejoined by her two sons at 
the castle of Schwedt. Embracing them with streaming eyes, 
she exclaimed, — 

" The Prussian army is destroyed, my children ! Your 
fatherland is ruined, and its glory gone ! Live to avenge 
it!" 

Russia came to the rescue, but Eylau and Friedland suc- 
ceeded Jena, and Prussia, with her weapons wrested out of her 
hands, was left friendless and hopeless. Her king, alike 
powerless and destitute, gave his child, the future Empress 
of Russia, five thalers to buy herself a birthday dress, declar- 
ing this was the last money he had. 



WILLIAM J., KING OF PRUSSIA. 39 

The two beaten monarchs — Alexander and Frederick Wil- 
liam — begged for an armistice, and met Napoleon at Tilsit, on 
a raft moored at the middle of the Niemen. A series of con- 
ferences followed, in which little more account was taken of the 
King of Prussia than if he had not existed. His noble queen 
had refrained from going to Tilsit because of the calumnious 
reports to which Alexander's well-known admiration for her 
had given rise, and which Napoleon had officially countenanced. 
But inasmuch as nothing else availed to relax the harsh pur- 
poses of the conqueror towards Prussia, it was resolved to see 
what could be done with him by the queen's intercession. 
Nobly disdaining her just resentment, she came to plead, as 
best she might, for her family and people. " The Queen of 
Prussia," says Thiers, " was then thirty-two years old. Her 
beauty, formerly brilliant, appeared to be slightly aifected by 
age,- but she was still one of the finest women of her time." 
" Duroc," says the Duchess d'Abrantes, " considered her the 
most beautiful woman he had ever seen." 

An hour after her arrival, Napoleon anticipated her by pay- 
ing her a visit, but by no persuasion could she move him from 
his inexorable resolves. His first intention had been to efface 
Prussia from the map of Europe ; but to placate Russia, and 
obtain her alliance against England, he had already decided 
not to proceed so far. " Your Majesty," he said to the queen 
" knows my intentions. I have communicated them to the 
Emperor Alexander, because, as mediator between us, he has 
been pleased to undertake to impart them to the king, and they 
are unalterable. I cannot conceal from you that what I have 
done has been done for the sake of the Emperor of Russia." 

The queen turned pale at these words. Her noble spirit 
had received a poisoned thrust, and bowed beneath its weight 
of grief and misfortune. 

The treaty of Tilsit deprived the King of Prussia of four 
and a half millions of his subjects, out of nine millions, and 



40 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

left him but the shadow of his royal authority. Modern his- 
tory affords no example of national humiliation parallel to 
this, except only that which, sixty years later, made its bloody 
trail from Gravelotte and Sedan to Paris. 

When, upon Christmas eve, 1809, Frederick William III. 
returned to Berlin, deep dejection had fallen upon his people. 
The queen, we. are told, wept bitterly, and a few months later 
she found, in death, repose from her sorrows. "The world," 
she remarked during her last hours, " may not name me among 
its famous women, but will at least confess that I. have greatly 
suffered. It will also, I trust, acknowledge that I have given 
it children who have deserved and nobly achieved better things 
than I have experienced." 

To-day the world confesses all this, and more. It pro- 
foundly venerates the memory of Prussia's most famous queen, 
and sees realized, beyond her fondest hope, her last wish and 
prophecy. 

Queen Louisa died at the darkest hour in German history, 
but the deep darkness was that which just precedes the dawn. 
The star of Napoleon's destiny had already passed its meri- 
dian. The time was already near when, at Moscow and 
Torres Vedras, the flood-tide of his fortunes would reach its 
farthest limit, and come rolling back again in disaster, vast 
and irretrievable. Early in the year 1813 the Sixth Coalition 
against him was formed, and all Prussia sprang to arms. 
Not the princes only, but the people were now allied to over- 
throw him, for to the great middle class, who had hitherto 
deemed him the son of the Revolution, sent out to redeem 
them from the thraldom of medieval absolutism, he had 
become the champion of nothing but his own greed of power 
and conquest. By his own fault the war became, to most 
Germans, a necessary struggle for independence, and shouting 
their old battle-cry, " With God for King and Fatherland," 
they rallied once more to their ancient standards. What they 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 41 

lacked in military organization and leadership they made up 
in enthusiasm ; the battles of Liitzfm and Bautzen were fol- 
lowed by those of Dresden, Leipsic, and Hanau ; the allied 
forces marched on Paris, aud the throne of Napoleon was 
overturned. 

Victorious at last, the Prussian army made its grand entree 
to the French capital, March 31, 1814. King Frederick 
William and the Emperor Alexander led the column, and 
behind them, in captain's uniform, rode a youth of seventeen, 
the second son of the dead Queen Louisa. During the battle 
of Leipsic, while his elder brother was allowed to accompany 
the army, he had been left at home, fretting inconsolably. To 
comfort him he was advanced from the rank of ensign to that 
of first lieutenant. " But why should they promote me," he 
cried with true Hohenzollern spirit, " when I have done noth- 
ing but sit in the chimney-corner at home?" He was there- 
fore ordered into service, and, under fire for the first time in 
his life, crossed the Rhine at Mannheim with his father the 
king. While the Russian troops were lighting in the vine- 
yards at Bar-sur-Aube, one of the regiments dashed ahead, 
leading the rest, with great loss. " Go back and find out what 
regiment that is," said the king. But Prince William did 
not go back. He rode forward into the rain of bullets, ob- 
tained the regiment's name, counted its dead and wounded, 
and came back and reported to his father. The Russian 
soldiers cheered the boy prince's gallant exploit, his father 
promoted him to a captaincy, and the czar gave him the iron 
cross of St. George. 

Returning to Berlin with these honors upon him, the prince, 
in the presence of the whole court, took his confirmation vows, 
in which, written out with his own hand, he makes these 
pledges : 

" My princely position shall always remind me of the higher 
duties it imposes. I shall never forget that a prince is also a 

4* 



42 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

man, and that the laws which apply to other men apply also 
to him. I shall be grateful to God for all the good He may 
grant me, and submissive in all the afflictions He may lay 
upon me, convinced that whatever He does is best. I shall 
cherish kind feeling towards all men, even the humblest, for 
they are my brothers. To the Christian faith which I this 
day avow I shall remain always true, endeavoring to honor it 
with increasing devotion in my heart. I shall do no injustice 
or cruelty to any one, or, failing in this, shall do my best to 
repair the injury. I esteem it much better to be loved than 
to be feared." 

After Napoleon's final overthrow at Waterloo, Prince Wil- 
liam entered Paris for the second time with the allied army. 
After that his life for more than forty years was wholly 
devoted to military training and service, with very little 
opportunity for achieving distinction. On the other hand, 
the civil life of the German people during this period was of 
very great interest. 

The oppressive and despoiling rule of the princes in Ger- 
many had made the conquests of Napoleon at first welcome to 
a large proportion of the conquered. Under hereditary rule 
government had been administered for the benefit of the few 
at the expense of the many. Taxation was outrageously 
exorbitant and unequal, trade was crippled by arbitrary bur- 
dens and restrictions, the courts were corrupt, and freedom 
of speech was denied. The multitude of petty despotisms 
which had grown up under their foster-mother, the Holy 
Roman Empire, were all the more despotic and oppressive by 
reason of their pettiness, and the absence of any superior re- 
straint. The people yearned immeasurably for freer govern- 
ment, and for national consolidation. The secession of the 
Rhine Confederation was an expression of this yearning, for it 
was a revolt, not against Germany, but against the old regime. 
To counteract that revolt, and, more than all, to unite the 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 43 

people against Napoleon, their rulers promised them the re- 
forms they wanted. But with the downfall of Napoleon 
these promises were straightway forgotten, and the monarchs of 
Prussia, Austria, and Russia united themselves in a so-called 
Holy Alliance for the maintenance of existing dynasties. 

That alliance, born of fear, was a league against the 
principles which gave vitality and strength to the French 
Revolution, and the history of the German people for the next 
fifty years is the history of a prolonged though intermittent 
agitation for national unity and constitutional government. 
This agitation accomplished much, but its results came far 
short of the popular desire. The concessions which it wrested 
from the absolutist regime were grudging and unsatisfactory, 
and the union of the German states was a shadow and a 
mockery. Immediately upon the overthrow of Napoleon the 
thirty-nine surviving German sovereignties had organized 
themselves into a confederation with a permanent diet com- 
posed of representatives of the princes. This so-called parlia- 
ment was a nest of mischievous rivalries little less contemptible 
than those of the pre-Napoleonic period. Without substantial 
power to govern, it became the servile instrument of political 
oppression, and lost no opportunity to lend its influence to the 
schemes of absolute power. The only real bond of union 
among German states was the Prussian league called the 
Zollverein abolishing the commercial restrictions of the old 
regime. This league, with Prussia at its head, was cemented 
by mutual interest, and may be regarded as the beginning of 
the present empire. 

The Zollverein was established during the reign of King 
Frederick William III., who died in 1840, and was succeeded 
by his eldest son, Frederick William IV. With this change 
of government the title of Prince William was changed to 
that of Prince of Prussia. His life, devoted to his favorite 
military studies and to the army, kept him aloof from the 



44 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

political agitations of the period. The time was approaching, 
however, when his beaten course of military routine would 
cross that of the popular movement. That movement had 
received a strong impulse from the dethronement of Charles 
X. in France, in 1830. Appeased for the time being by some 
concessions, it was reawakened by the reactionary policy of 
Frederick William IV. That monarch was, by conviction, 
an absolutist pure and simple. Liberal-minded as crown 
prince, he became despotic and arbitrary as king. Constitu- 
tionalism seemed to him but a limitation of his usefulness, 
and in the French Revolution he saw nothing but anarchy 
and religious scepticism. But he was not a man of strong 
character, and could easily have been brought to a different 
way of thinking but for the powerful army which stood loyally 
at his back. That army, with the Prince of Prussia at its 
head, seemed to the common understanding to be the one 
great obstacle to the consummation of the popular will. A 
storm of revolutionary rage was, therefore, directed against 
the prince, who, at the advice of his brother, the king, sought 
refuge for a time in England. 

The Liberal party now began to agitate measures designed, 
to impair the stability and efficiency of the military organiza- 
tion, and these measures the prince naturally opposed. To 
his view the army was the very basis of Prussian power and 
influence, while to the popular notion it was a mere instru- 
ment in the hands of the oppressor. To make matters worse, 
the downfall of the Orleans dynasty in France precipitated 
insurrections in all the German states. Prince William was 
charged with the suppression of these outbreaks, and soon 
captured and dispersed all the armed forces arrayed against 
the authority of the crown. He incurred very great odium 
in doing this, but Americans should nevertheless be grateful 
to him, for the collapse of the German Revolution of 1848 
gave to this country a large number of useful citizens. 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 45 

The main-spring of that revolution was the popular aspira- 
tion after national union. Accordingly, with the acquiescence, 
though not the consent, of the sovereigns, a national congress 
of representatives of the people was convoked, and on the 
18th of May, 1848, the first German Parliament, elected by 
universal suffrage, convened in the old Church of St. Paul, 
in Frankfort-on-the-Main. That parliament was a body of 
well-meaning poets, philologists, visionaries and doctrinaires. 
After prodigious discussion it evolved a constitution, and 
offered the imperial crown of Germany, in hereditary right, 
to King Frederick William IV. But the proposed gift was 
one which neither giver nor receiver had the power to make 
good, and the king refused it. Its acceptance would have 
involved Prussia, unprepared, in a war with Austria. 

The Frankfort Parliament and Constitution came to naught, 
but the revolution gave constitutionalism to many of the 
German states, including Prussia, and greatly stimulated the 
national unity movement. Further efforts on- the part of 
Prussia to carry forward this movement to practical results 
were baffled by the intrigues of Austria. Nevertheless, a 
second German Parliament was summoned by Frederick 
William IV., and in March, 1850, assembled at Erfurt. It 
prepared a constitution, adjourned, and never reconvened. 
Austria and her following kept aloof from it, and resuscitated 
the old German Diet, in which Prussia, though invited, re- 
fused to take part. The Elector of Hesse having been de- 
posed by his people, appealed to the Diet, and Austria sent an 
army to reinstate him. Prussia, as chief of the Federal 
Union, of which Hesse had become a part, also sent her forces 
to the field. The two armies stood confronting each other 
when a peace was negotiated at Olmutz, a town of Moravia, 
by which Prussia abandoned her federation schemes and con- 
sented to the restoration of the Diet under the presidency of 
Austria. Thus Prussia surrendered the championship of 



46 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

German unity rather than fight. Her people felt immensely 
humiliated, but Austria was backed by Russia, and the Prus- 
sian army was in no condition to cope with those two powers, 
either combined or separate. 

Thus the national consolidation movement was balked, the 
old Diet resumed its place as the repository of central power, 
and Austria regained her political predominance. The sem- 
blance of unity was restored, but only the semblance. The 
German Confederation was a mere league of princes, — "a 
bundle of conflicting states tied with red tape." The Diet, 
composed of representatives of the sovereigns, — not the people, 
— was a body of prodigious dignity and very little authority. 
It had no power to legislate, and none to govern. Its delibera- 
tions were, for the most part, a mere blind to the intrigues and 
counter-intrigues between the Hohenzollerns and the Haps- 
burgs and their satellites. Assuming an air of vastly superior 
consequence, the Austrian representative presided at the sit- 
tings in dressing-room attire, and, when giving audience, leis- 
urely indulged in his cigar while his colleagues danced attend- 
ance. When, on a certain occasion, Prussia, in the person of 
Herr von Bismarck, took a cigar and asked Austria for a light, 
a rupture was produced in the august tranquillity of the Diet, 
which, for a time, looked truly abysmal. But directly Bavaria, 
Hesse, and even the little Mecklenburgs ventured to smoke in 
the presence of Austria. 

The Zollverein having enabled Prussia to hold commercial 
supremacy in Germany, Austria was naturally ambitious to 
gain control of it, but her machinations were thwarted. Her 
efforts to embroil Prussia in the Crimean war were equally 
abortive. In both instances her failure was chiefly due to 
Baron Bismarck, who had become a confidential adviser to 
King Frederick William, and strongly counselled him against 
taking part in Austrian disputes. " It is my conviction," 
declared the future imperial chancellor, "that at no distant 



WILLIAM L, KING OF PRUSSIA. 47 

time we shall have to fight with Austria for our very exist- 
ence." 

The Prince of Prussia shared this conviction profoundly, 
and deemed a powerful army indispensable to the safety and 
welfare of the kingdom. But the army was not powerful. 
It was weak in numbers, and still crippled by obsolete methods 
and traditions. The prince had spent his life with it, and 
realized its imperfections perhaps more keenly than any one 
else. He therefore labored with untiring zeal for its reorgan- 
ization, and while so laboring was called to the head of the 
government. In 1858, Frederick William IV. lost his reason, 
and the Prince of Prussia became regent. That a firm hand 
had taken the direction of affairs was soon seen. Austria 
became involved in a war with France and Sardinia, which 
resulted in her expulsion from Italy. The Prussian army 
was mobilized to assist her, but she would accept its aid only 
under her own supreme direction, and this the prince regent 
refused to concede. The day of Prussia's subserviency to 
Austria had gone by. 

On the 2d of January, 1861, the childless King Frederick 
William IV. died, and the prince regent ascended the throne 
of Prussia as William I. The new king was crowned at 
Konigsberg during the following October, and placed the 
crown upon his head with his own hands. He had been 
brought up in abhorrence of revolution, and divine right was 
one of the traditions of the royal house of Prussia. He there- 
fore wished to signify by the act of self-crowning that his 
sovereignty was derived from heaven, as he sincerely believed 
it was, and not from the people. Nothing could have been 
more offensive than this to the Liberal Reform party in Prussia, 
but it had at least the merit that everybody knew precisely 
what it meant. Well-intentioned but weak, at heart an abso- 
lutist yet willing to cater to liberal ideas, Frederick William 
IV. had strewn his path with broken promises and wrecked 



48 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

hopes. One day he was for constitutional and representative 
government ; the next, alarmed at the concessions he had made, 
he would appeal to the strong arm of his loyal soldier-brother 
to crush the very hopes he had awakened. Really honest, he 
had played the part of a hypocrite, and while intending to be 
straightforward, he had involved himself worse and worse in 
a hopeless mesh of inconsistencies, until his troubles drove him 
mad. 

There were to be no such disappointments under the new 
reign. King William I. would perform just what he promised, 
and would promise no more than he intended to perform. He 
was known to be a man of his word, and his people might 
as well understand at the outset just what to expect. This 
might be disrelished in the beginning, but it would be better 
in the end. The late king had made himself detested by his 
vacillation; the new king preferred to be detested, if at all, 
for being unswerving in what he believed to be right. He 
was determined that, whatever might come, there should be 
no Reign of Terror in Berlin, and humanity has not con- 
demned him for that. He was profoundly convinced that no 
debating club could lead Prussia safely through her impending 
perils, and the sequel has justified that conviction. He was 
for national unity just as ardently as the Liberals were, but 
his way of achieving it was not their way. He was, before 
all, for the integrity and independence of the Prussian king- 
dom, and he believed the first thing in order was the full 
achievement of these objects. 

In this achievement the army, he knew, would be the chief 
reliance. The Liberal party regarded the military establish- 
ment as the principal bulwark of absolutism, the king regarded 
it as the chief muniment of national safety. The one strove 
to enfeeble it, the other demanded that it be reorganized and 
increased. Already, as regent, the king had brought forward 
his scheme of military reform, and he now pressed it with 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 49 

redoubled zeal. The Prussian Parliament stormed and pro- 
tested, a bitter conflict was precipitated, and the king's un- 
popularity rose to its highest pitch. But nothing could divert 
the stern old monarch from his inflexible purpose. His Parlia- 
ment being too obstinate to grant what he wanted, and his 
ministry too timid to demand it, he dissolved the one and dis- 
missed the other. At this juncture the king summoned Otto 
von Bismarck to form a new ministry. Bismarck had repre- 
sented Prussia in the Frankfort Diet and at the court of St. 
Petersburg. He was at this time her ambassador to Paris, 
and by his various diplomatic services had gained the king's 
fullest confidence. They had first met, to become acquainted, 
in 1861. "^ismarck's whole soul glowed with the passionate 
resolve to expel Austria from Germany. ... To raise Prussia 
to the political status which he thought his country ought to 
hold was his religion. He entered the path of action with the 
fervor of a Mahomet enforcing a novel faith." * 

The king seems to have known by instinct what a powerful 
auxiliary he had obtained. A Russian countess having com- 
plimented him upon his improved appearance, he replied, point- 
ing to his new minister president, " Voila mon m&decinr But 
while the crown was thus strongly reinforced, the Parliament 
relaxed none of its opposition. Its doctrinaires insisted that, 
in order to consolidate the German nation with Prussia at its 
head, it was only necessary for the Prussian kingdom to adopt 
their theories of liberal government. To this Bismarck made 
answer, " Not by speechifying and majorities can the great 
questions of the time be decided, — that was the mistake of 
1848-9, — but by blood and iron." The king, equally deter- 
mined, said, " Though all should be against me, I would 
rather- put myself at the head of the army and perish with it, 
than yield in this contest." 

* Sir Alexander Malet. 
c d 5 



50 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

In the midst of this controversy the soldier king per- 
fected that splendid military machine by which he afterwards 
accomplished such vast results for Prussia and for Germany. 
Aided by his faithful lieutenant, General Von Roon, he re- 
laxed not for a moment the prosecution of his plans for reor- 
ganizing the army. The infantry force was doubled, ten new 
cavalry regiments were organized, and the whole was disciplined 
and equipped upon an entirely new system. But not one cent 
would Parliament vote for the support of this force, and for 
four years Bismarck ruled without a budget. 

The time was not long; in coming; which should vindicate 
the persistency of the king and his prime-minister. The 
Schleswig-Holstein quarrel precipitated the l<*ng-impending 
conflict between Prussia and Austria. On the northern con- 
fines of Hanover, forming the peninsula between the German 
Ocean and the Baltic, lay the two little duchies of Schleswig 
and Holstein. Within these territories dwelt the ancient 
Angles, — the original English. Schleswig, which lay nearest 
to Denmark, was mainly German, Holstein entirely so. For 
five centuries the suzerainty of these provinces had been 
involved in a criss-cross of hereditary claims, revolutionary 
contentions, and diplomatic disputes. Prince Metternich de- 
scribed the Schleswig-Holstein question as " the bone on which 
the Germans were whetting their teeth ;" Lord Palmerston 
said it was " a match that would set Europe on fire ;" Bis- 
marck's view of it was that of " a play representing the in- 
trigues of diplomacy." All three were right. 

In the course of dynastic evolution the duchy of Holstein 
came into political union with Germany while attached, like 
Schleswig, in a personal way to the crown of Denmark. The 
King of Denmark was duke in Schleswig-Holstein, and, as 
Duke of Holstein-Lauenburg, was represented in the Ger- 
manic Diet. As a device for producing international contention 
this arrangement was ideally perfect. The duchies lay between 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 51 

two powers both ambitious to possess them, and both having a 
colorable claim to their possession. In 1852 a conference of 
the great powers was held at London to fix the Danish suc- 
cession in default of male heirs to Frederick VII. This con- 
ference, to which the Germanic Diet was not a party, declared 
that Prince Christian, of Schleswig-Holstein, should be the 
next king of Denmark, without affecting stipulations pre- 
viously made that Schleswig should not be incorporated into 
the Danish monarchy. In defiance of this arrangement, King 
Frederick proceeded to take advantage, as he supposed, of the 
parliamentary conflict in Prussia, by decreeing, in effect, the 
annexation of Schleswig to Denmark. This act was im- 
mediately confirmed by Prince Christian, upon ascending the 
throne a few months later, upon the death of Frederick. The 
Germanic Diet now declared the London treaty broken by 
Denmark, and Prussia and Austria, for once united, precipi- 
tated their forces into Holstein. The Germanic Diet was then 
solicited to sanction the invasion of Schleswig also, but re- 
fused. In defiance of this refusal the Austro-Prussian army 
pushed into Schleswig, swept the Danes from one fortified 
point after another, and even occupied Jutland. 

All this time the Prussian Parliament had persisted in its 
refusal to grant supplies to the reorganized army, but now that 
victory had been achieved even without the supplies, all 
Prussia enthusiastically hailed King William as the liberator of 
Schleswig. The king had not accompanied his forces to the 
field, but the Prussian leaders, Prince Frederick Carl and 
General Von Raven, had borne away the chief military 
honors. 

The King of Denmark, now quite ready to come to terms 
with the victorious powers, renounced by treaty, at Vienna in 
1864, all claims to Schleswig-Holstein, and also to Lauenburg. 
This ended the Schleswig-Holstein question so far as Denmark 
was concerned, but between Prussia and Austria it had just 



52 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

begun. With some writers it is a favorite theory that, for a 
deep-laid purpose, Austria had been beguiled by Bismarck into 
the invasion of Schleswig. That invasion was made in defi- 
ance of the Germanic Diet, over which Austria presided, and 
in which Bismarck desired to destroy her influence. The final 
result of the matter was the extinction of the Diet itself, the 
annexation of the duchies to Prussia, and the formation of the 
North German Confederation. Whether or not, as is assumed, 
King William and his great minister aimed at these results 
from the beginning, their resolution and skill led to them by 
the shortest possible route. 

The duchies had no sooner been acquired than it became a 
burning question between the rival powers what should be 
done with them. After prolonged controversy Prussia pro- 
posed to annex them, but Austria would consent to this only 
upon terms which were scornfully rejected. The Diet under- 
took to adjust matters between the disputants, but was disre- 
garded. The quarrel had stretched the limitations of forbear- 
ance when, in 1865, an arrangement was patched up at Gastein 
which gave to Austria the exclusive occupation of Holstein, to 
Prussia that of Schleswig, and annexed Lauenburg to Prussia. 
King William was deeply gratified by this apparent termina- 
tion of an ugly quarrel, and, as a sign of his appreciation, 
bestowed upon Bismarck the title of Count. 

But the Gastein Convention settled nothing. While the 
Prussian Parliament continued to quarrel violently with the 
king and his prime-minister about their requirements for the 
army and the fleet, and the popular rage against the minister 
grew so intense that an assassin undertook to murder him in 
the streets of Berlin, the relations between Prussia and 
Austria became more strained than ever. An anti-Prussian 
meeting held at Altona, in January, 1866, by permission of 
the Austrian governor, precipitated a crisis. Prussia remon- 
strated angrily, and virtually resolved to expel her rival from 



WILLIAM /., KING OF PRUSSIA. 53 

Holstein. Austria having gained the support of the minor 
German states, Prnssia formed an alliance with Italy, and 
obtained promises of neutrality from Napoleon III. England, 
France, and Russia attempted to mediate, and King William 
was still averse to war, but nothing could now divert from its 
course the resistless current of events. Insisting upon unac- 
ceptable conditions of mediation, Austria appealed to the 
Germanic Diet. Prussia declared this an abandonment of 
the Gastein Convention, and General Manteuffel led her 
helmeted warri'ors into Holstein. The Austrians fled precipi- 
tately from the duchy, while their government denounced its 
invasion as a violation of the Federal Constitution. The Diet 
sustaining Austria, Prussia declared this action a usurpation, 
and withdrew from the Confederation. Hanover, Saxony, and 
Hesse-Cassel having declared for Austria in the Diet, their 
territories were immediately occupied by Prussian troops. 

All this time Austria, under various pretexts, had been 
stealthily pushing masses of troops northward in Bohemia 
and Moravia. But now, at last, the labor of a lifetime was 
about to bear its fruits. In a moment, as by pressure of a 
finger, Chief of Staff "Von Moltke, sitting in his office at 
Berlin, put into motion the splendid military machinery 
which, through decades of censorious opposition, the far-seeing, 
Prussia-loving genius of King William had provided. The 
Austrian army, led by General Benedek, had assembled about 
Koniggratz, in Eastern Bohemia. It intended to sweep north- 
ward through the states of Saxony and Hanover — in alliance 
with Austria — and cut the Prussian monarchy in twain. It 
never reached Prussian soil. 

On the 22d of June, 1866, the main army of Prussia, in 
three divisions, moved towards the Bohemian frontier. The 
First, or Centre, Division, about one hundred thousand strong, 
advanced from Saxony under Prince Friedrich Carl, the 
king's nephew. The Second, or Left, Division, numbering 

5* 



54 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

about one hundred and sixteen thousand men, started from 
Silesia. It was led by the Crown Prince Friedricb, since 
Emperor of Germany. The Third Division, about forty 
thousand strong, held the right under General Herwarth 
von Bittenfeld. Crossing the Giant Mountains, these three 
armies were to meet at Gitschin, in Bohemia. The Austrians 
made stubborn resistance at the mountain passes, but in vain. 
Triumphant at every encounter, the Prussian columns pushed 
steadily forward, and on the 29th the First and Third Divis- 
ions arrived at Gitschin. On their left was the crown prince 
at Koniginhof, a day's march distant. These preliminary 
victories set all Prussia ablaze with enthusiasm, and her 
venerable ruler found himself, for the first time in his life, the 
idol of his people. At the age of sixty-nine he had won the 
applause which he had long coveted, but never before could 
acquire except by violence to his convictions of duty. 

On the 30th of June the king left Berlin for the seat of 
war, accompanied by Counts Roon, Moltke, and Bismarck. 
He reached the front July 2, and found that the outlying 
Austrian columns had all been driven back, with heavy loss, 
towards Koniggratz. The king determined to give his army a 
day of rest to prepare for the supreme struggle, but near mid- 
night he was aroused from his camp-bed with the message that 
the main Austrian army lay immediately in front of Prince 
Friedrich Carl. This news, doubted at first, was confirmed 
by a reconnoissance, and away darted Count Finkenstein alone 
in the night with a message to the crown prince to sweep down 
with all speed upon the Austrian right. To the centre and 
right divisions the command was despatched to assault at dawn 
General Benedek's centre and left. 

After a rainy night came a rainy morning, but at seven 
o'clock the thunder of artillery broke forth, and the battle 
opened. The king, accompanied by his great strategist Von 
Moltke, was early in the saddle, and was received with great 



WILLIAM I., KING OF PRUSSIA. 55 

enthusiasm by his troops. All day long he was exposed to 
danger. " The attention of the king was wholly fixed on the 
progress of the battle," said Bismarck, " and he paid not the 
slightest heed to the shells that were whizzing thickly around 
him. To my repeated request that His Majesty might not so 
carelessly expose himself to so murderous a fire, he only 
answered, ' The commander-in-chief must be where he ought 
to be.' " 

Hour after hour the battle raged, the fiercest of it around 
the wood of Sadowa. At noon, after numerous assaults, the 
Prussians paused to recuperate, and at head-quarters all eyes 
were turned in anxious search for the expected columns of the 
crown prince. At four o'clock in the morning the prince had 
received the king's orders from the gallant Finkenstein, but 
he had twenty miles to march over a boggy country, and there 
was yet no sign of his appearing. The Prussians thundered 
with their cannon to keep Benedek amused while their infantry 
waited. At length, far to the left, long lines were seen 
stretched across the fields, resembling in the distance the fur- 
rows of the plough. They were the lines of the crown prince's 
army. Suddenly a terrific crash fell upon the Austrian right, 
and in an instant the armies of Prince Friedrich Carl and 
Von Bittenfeld rushed again to the attack. Assailed on front, 
flank, and rear, General Benedek's army wavered, broke, and 
left the field in precipitate flight. The century-old conflict 
was over ; the mastership in Germany was transferred from 
Austria to Prussia. 

Sometimes it is said that the Prussian school-master triumphed 
at Sadowa, and sometimes the needle-gun. These did much, 
to make the victory possible, but before all was half a century 
of patient, sagacious preparation, and above all were the 
strategy of Von Moltke, the diplomacy of Bismarck, and the 
leadership of William I. 

The war was virtually over in ten days from its beginning. 



56 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Among struggles of such magnitude history shows scarcely 
one other so brief and decisive. " I have lost all/' exclaimed 
Benedek, " except, alas ! my life." 

Moving southward without further resistance, the victori- 
ous Prussian army arrived within sight of the spire of St. 
Stephen's. A truce was called, and preliminary negotiations 
for peace, begun July 26, resulted in a definite treaty which 
was signed at Prague on the 23d of August. This treaty put 
an end to the old Confederation, excluded Austria from Ger- 
many, and effectuated a new crystallization of German states 
around the leadership of Prussia. Austria, although she had 
been victorious over the Italian army, was obliged to surrender 
"Venice to Italy. Prussia annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Han- 
over, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and Frankfort-on-the-Main. The 
South German states were left to their own course, but even 
before the Treaty of Prague had been signed they secretly 
entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. 
Thus, within the space of seven weeks, the map of Germany 
was entirely reconstructed, and the new era dawned for which 
the German people had been vainly hoping for centuries. 



CHAPTER Y. 

WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OP GERMANY. 

Formation of the New German Empire. 

The North German Confederation, organized directly after 
the battle of Sadowa, comprised the twenty-two states north 
of the river Main. These states, at first united by treaty, 
afterwards adopted a constitution declaring the Confederation 
to be a perpetual league. This constitution went into effect 



1 H 



S m 
5 H 



w^^'S? 



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#<>!* 



ft 




WILLIAM /., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 57 

July 1, 1867. It vested the legislative power in the Reich- 
stag, chosen by the people, and the Bundesrath, representing 
the allied governments, — the two forming the North German 
Parliament. The chief executive power was vested in the 
King of Prussia as President, who appointed Count Bismarck 
as Federal Chancellor. Most of the states adopted the Prus- 
sian military system, in whole or in part. 

The extension of the Zollverein treaty so as to include the 
South German states was the next important step towards 
complete national union. This was effected in the autumn of 
1867, and in April, 1868, a Customs Parliament representing 
the whole nation met at Berlin. But while a commercial 
union of all the states was thus accomplished, those of the 
south still remained outside the Confederation. Baden sought 
admission on her own account, but it was deemed best to 
decline her overtures until all the southern states should 
come in together. To bring this about became the next lead- 
ing object of Prussian statesmanship. But among the popu- 
lation of the south there was still much bitter feeling against 
Prussia, and all efforts to bring about closer political relations 
between the south and the north failegl. Complete national 
union seemed to lie far in the future, when the action of a 
foreign power, which had sought to prevent it, precipitated its 
consummation. 

The smoke had scarcely cleared from the field of Sadowa 
before Napoleon III. began to intermeddle in the affairs of 
Germany. Under pretext of mediation, his envoy, Benedetti, 
appeared at Prussian head-quarters, and undertook to dictate 
terms of peace. Failing in this, he demanded the restoration 
of the Rhine frontier of 1814 as compensation to France for 
the territorial aggrandizement of Prussia. This demand, 
though fortified by menace of war, was brusquely repelled. 
The French emperor was greatly chagrined, but for the time 
being smothered his wrath. Discretion impelled him to look 



58 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

around for some better pretext for a quarrel, and he soon 
found one, as he thought. 

The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, which was German in 
population, and had formed a part of the old Confederation, 
was a personal fief to the King of Holland, as Schleswig had 
been to the King of Denmark. Although garrisoned from 
the Prussian army, the duchy refused to enter the North 
German Confederation, and Napoleon, aiming especially to 
humiliate Prussia, endeavored to obtain possession of it by 
secret negotiations with the King of Holland. The king, 
tempted by proffers of a money indemnity, coupled with pro- 
posed protection by France against the displeasure of Ger- 
many, was inclined to yield, but hesitated. At this juncture, 
Bismarck, replying to an interpellation, declared that the 
cession of Luxemburg would be considered a casus belli, and 
published the secret military conventions entered into before 
the Treaty of Prague between Prussia and the South German 
states. The Emperor of the French was dumfounded to 
find that Germany had, without his knowledge, practically 
become a military unit, and the King of Holland, still worse 
dismayed, broke off all negotiations with him. 

With his army still crippled by the miscarriage of his 
Mexican expedition, Napoleon III. was in no condition to 
grapple with united Germany. He, therefore, resorted to 
the expedient of demanding withdrawal of the Prussian gar- 
rison from Luxemburg, and the reference of this question to 
a conference of the powers. Bismarck at first rejected this, 
but the king, willing to make any honorable concession for 
the sake of peace, consented, on condition that the Grand 
Duchy should be neutralized and its fortress razed. Prussia 
quitted Luxemburg, France was forbidden to enter it, and the 
German states made another long stride towards national 
union. 

A stipulation in the Treaty of Prague that the people of 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 59 

North Schleswig should be allowed to choose by a plebiscite 
between Germany and Denmark was made a pretext by 
Napoleon for still further interference with German recon- 
struction. Assuming to be charged with the fulfilment of 
that stipulation, he received a severe rebuff from Bismarck, 
who refused to recognize the right of France to demand the 
execution of a treaty to which she had not been a party, 

By this time the ambitious and jealous temper of the 
French emperor had reached a degree of irritation which 
needed but an opportunity to precipitate a crisis. The oppor- 
tunity soon came. On the 4th of July, 1870, announcement 
was made that the crown of Spain had been offered to Prince 
Leopold, of Hohenzollern, and on the same day the French 
government demanded, through its legation in Berlin, to 
know whether the announcement was true. The Prussian 
Foreign Office immediately disclaimed all knowledge of the 
affair. Historical evidence supports the belief that this reply 
was perfectly frank and honest. Prince Leopold stood in 
nearer blood relationship to the French dynasty than he did 
to the royal family of Prussia, and the negotiations with him 
on the part of Spain had been conducted directly by Marshal 
Prim. The Prussian government had kept aloof from them. 
But all this would not satisfy the French demand. The King 
of Prussia must require Prince Leopold to revoke his accept- 
ance of the Spanish crown. Either this or war. 

To present this ultimatum the French ambassador, Bene- 
detti, was despatched with all speed to Ems, whither the king 
had gone to meet his nephew, the czar. " I know what you 
have come for," said the venerable monarch as soon as the 
envoy presented himself, " but we shall not quarrel about the 
Hohenzollern candidature." To this benevolent greeting 
Benedstti responded with the demand and threat dictated 
by his government. Prince Leopold must be required to 
renounce the crown of Spain, otherwise there would be war. 



60 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Surprised but not daunted, the king declined to constrain his 
kinsman one way or the other. He had allowed him perfect 
freedom in his acceptance, and he would not compel him to 
recall it. Spurred by telegrams from Napoleon's foreign 
minister, the Due de Gramont, Benedetti presented his de- 
mand- a second and third time, but without avail. Mean- 
while Prince Leopold himself telegraphed his renunciation to 
Madrid. The French government was advised of this by 
the Spanish ambassador at Paris, but was still not satisfied. 
" Go to the King of Prussia, and demand his public approval 
of Prince Leopold's retirement, and his guaranty that the 
prince shall never again be a candidate for the crown of 
Spain." 

Such was the next command to Benedetti, received at mid- 
night on the 12th of July. Early next morning he sought 
the king at his lodgings, but finding he had gone out for a 
walk, started in pursuit. Seeing Benedetti hurrying after him 
the king stopped, and, as he approached, handed him a news- 
paper containing the news of Prince Leopold's withdrawal. 
Benedetti said he had received the same information from Paris. 

" Then all is settled," remarked His Majesty. 

Benedetti replied that his government was not satisfied, but 
demanded the king's public approval and pledge. " I neither 
can nor will make a pledge of that kind," replied the sturdy 
old monarch, and in a kindly tone he wished Monsieur 
Benedetti good-morning. 

The spot where this interview took place on the public 
promenade at Ems is now marked by a tablet. It bears the 
inscription : " July 13, 1870, 9 o'clock and 10 minutes in the 
forenoon." "Precisely on this spot, and at this moment," 
says a candid French writer, " the new German empire was 
born. This modest stone, which the gay promenaders tread 
upon as they pass by, is one of the most superb memorials 
in Europe." 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 61 

King "William at once set out for Berlin. The bullying 
arrogance with which he had been pursued by Napoleon, and 
his patient and dignified firmness in repelling it, had aroused 
the national spirit of the whole German people, and at every 
station on his homeward journey he was overwhelmed with 
demonstrations of their loyalty and regard. " It is just as it 
was in 1813," he said. Berlin was in a frenzy of patriotic 
fervor, and gave a magnificent welcome to its brave old 
sovereign. As he neared the city he was apprised of the 
virtual declaration of war by France, and before he slept that 
night he had given orders to mobilize the army of the North 
German Confederation. 

And now again was seen with what marvellous genius and 
foresight, through all the tumults of the past, that splendid 
military system had been prepared and perfected. At a touch 
all its mighty forces moved to their appointed work in perfect 
harmony. From the instantaneous beginning to the trium- 
phant end there was scarcely ajar in the gigantic mechanism, 
scarcely a single mistake or miscarriage. Such perfection of 
scientific warfare — such complete military adaptation of means 
to ends — the world had never before witnessed. 

Nor had the genius of preparation confined itself to the 
sphere of military art. Diplomacy and statesmanship had 
performed a work equally skilful and beneficent. While 
France had been adroitly isolated in the councils of Europe, 
and precluded from forming any powerful alliance, equal 
dexterity had been shown in directing events so as to unite 
all the German states against her. The moment Napoleon 
declared war, Germany was one. When he proposed to the 
Southern states — once the allies of France — the choice be- 
tween observing neutrality or suffering invasion, the scornful 
reply was, " We are not born idiots." There was no longer 
any south or any north in the fatherland, but one country and 
one cause. Even state lines were for once forgotten, and 



62 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

political estrangements centuries old were effaced. In ad 
history there has been no popular uprising so sublime as that 
of the German people in 1870, except ouly that of the Ameri- 
can people in 1861. From the Baltic to the Alps rose in 
fervid chorus the grand national anthem : 

Zum Ehein, zum Ehein, zum deutschen Ehein ! 

"Wir alle wollen Hiiter sein ! 

Lieb Vaterland magst ruhig sein, 

Fest steht, und treu, die Wacht am Ehein ! 

Thus inspired, with single purpose, and with one heart 
beating with the gathered impulses of a thousand years, the 
helmeted hosts rushed to meet the invader by the borders of 
the majestic river, whose classic current, stately and mystical 
as the stream of time, reflects in its depths the legendary life 
and grandeur of ages on ages past. 

When the formal declaration of war by France was an- 
nounced in the Reichstag, the whole House and the spectators 
in the galleries rose and united in shouts of " Long live the 
king !" The grim old strategist, Von Moltke, is said to have 
looked ten years younger when war became certain. Bis- 
marck, too, buckled on his sword, and " brightened," we are 
told, " at the prospect of a life full of hardships and dangers." 
But in the midst of all the excitement the venerable king, 
admonishing the whole nation to do likewise, neglected not to 
spend a day in humble invocation to the God of battles. 
Bent in filial and pious reverence beside the mausoleum where 
repose the ashes of his patriot mother, and where deathless 
Art has carved her beauteous effigy, he fitly sought the promise 
of divine help for the struggle wherein, full soon, he would 
gloriously avenge her sufferings. 

Within a fortnight after the declaration of war, the com- 
bined armies of Germany, numbering one million men, had 
been mobilized, and had reached their appointed stations on 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 63 

the French frontier. All stood ready for the signal to strike, 
when, on the 31st of July, the king quitted Berlin for the 
seat of war. " I know the French from experience," he said 
to General Von Falkenstein at Hanover, " and I am prepared 
for a long struggle." Prepared ? Yes ! It had been his life- 
work to prepare to meet just such a crisis as this to the people 
and the land he loved. Foreseeing, patient, and strong, he 
was ready. 

At Mayence the king announced that he had personally 
assumed command of the united armies, and now we see him, 
as we saw him at Griesheim, the warrior-king on horseback, 
helmeted, stalwart, and majestic. There is something touch- 
ing as well as inspiring in the sight of this venerable monarch 
at the age of seventy-three leading his armies afield and 
throwing down the gage of battle to the enemies of the 
fatherland. 

Intending to invade Germany and strike the first blow, 
Napoleon assembled one hundred and fifty thousand men at 
Metz, one hundred thousand at Strasburg, and a reserve of 
fifty thousand at Chalons. The Metz and Strasburg armies, 
united, were to cross the Rhine, sever North from South Ger- 
many, and by prestige of rapid movement and success win 
the alliance of Austria and the South German states. 

The German force comprised three armies : the first, under 
General Von Steinmetz, holding the right ; the second, under 
Prince Friedrich Carl, known as "The Red Prince," the 
centre; and the third, under the crown prince, — afterwards 
emperor, — the left. These armies numbered together four 
hundred and forty-seven thousand men. Behind them were 
reserves amounting to five hundred and seventy-four thousand 
more. On the 1st of August the first army, which was 
farthest advanced, held the line of the Saar, with the second 
army coming in on its left. The third army having crossed 
the Rhine at Mannheim, deployed with its outposts well to the 



64 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

front. It was confronted by Douay's division of McMahon's 
corps at Weissenburg. 

Anticipated in their schemes of invasion, the French com- 
manders greatly misconceived the positions, plans, and strength 
of their antagonists. Hoping to gain information, Napoleon, 
accompanied by the little prince imperial, personally directed 
an assault upon the Prussian outpost at Saarbriicken. The 
Prussians, after a three hours' battle on the heights of Speich- 
eren, withdrew to their second line, and Napoleon telegraphed 
emotionally to the Empress Eugenie : 

" Louis has received his baptism of fire. . . . The Prus- 
sians made brief resistance. Louis and I were in front, where 
the bullets fell about us. Louis keeps a ball he picked up. 
The soldiers wept at his tranquillity." 

That was on the 2d of August. Just a month later Napo- 
leon was a captive, the empress and prince imperial were fugi- 
tives, and France, without a government or an army, lay pros- 
trate at the feet of King William. " Verily," wrote Carlyle, 
"in all history there is no instance of an insolent, unjust 
neighbor that ever got so complete, instantaneous, and igno- 
minious a smashing down as France now got from Germany." 

While the French were still rejoicing over their victory at 
Speicheren, the three German armies received the signal to 
advance. With beautiful precision they moved, all led by 
veteran chieftains, and all guided by one master-hand. The 
crown prince led off with a force of one hundred and thirty 
thousand men and a splendid park of artillery. On the 
4th of August he surprised and routed Douay's division at 
Weissenburg, and on the 6th overthrew and nearly destroyed 
McMahon's army at Worth. While this was being done, grim 
old Von Steinmetz, " the Lion of Skalitz," assaulted and 
retook the heights of Speicheren, and nearly annihilated the 
French corps of Frossard. 

" God be praised ! A great victory has been won by our 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 65 

Fritz/' King William telegraphed to Queen Augusta. Directly 
he sent a second despatch telling of Worth. " Another victory 
by Fritz ! God be praised for his mercy !" it ran ; and all 
Berlin rushed into the streets and sang with one accord 
Luther's noble hymn : Einefeste Burg ist unser Gott. 

With the shreds of his command McMahon withdrew pre- 
cipitately towards Chalons, while the remnants of Frossard's 
corps fell back on Metz, where Bazaine had collected an army 
of two hundred and fifty thousand men. 

And now began to be developed that consummate strategy 
almost matchless in the history of war, — the strategy' of Von 
Moltke. 

From Metz westward to Verdun and Chalons there runs an 
old Roman road, and by this and the parallel highways 
Bazaine was directed by Napoleon to fall back on Chalons 
and there unite with McMahon. To prevent this retreat, and 
proposed junction of forces, was the problem to which Von 
Moltke, by the direction of the king, now addressed himself. 
Bazaine began his retreat on the morning of the 14th, but 
while his leading divisions were crossing the Moselle, those 
holding the rear w r ere violently assailed by Von Steinmetz, 
and forced back, after a seven hours' battle, under the walls 
of the Metz fortress. Meanwhile the army of the Red 
Prince, sweeping around to the southward, was hastening to 
throw itself directly across Bazaine's line of retreat by the 
Verdun road. On the 16th this was accomplished under the 
personal direction of Von Moltke. Desperate fighting ensued 
at Vionville and Mars-la-Tour, but when the sun went down 
the Germans still held their positions, and Bazaine's whole 
army was brought to a halt. All the following night and day 
Von Moltke hurried up the troops which had not reached him 
on the 16th, so that by the morning of the 18th he had 
collected a force of over two hundred thousand men and six 
hundred pieces of artillery. The king now took command, 



QQ EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

the battle of Gravelotte was fought, and the army of Bazaine 
was thrown back, with tremendous loss, on Metz. The 
king was under fire all day, and at evening, while seated upon 
the carcass of a horse slain in the battle, wrote a despatch 
to the queen, announcing his victory. 

While the Red Prince, with his army, remained for the in- 
vestment of Metz, the first and third armies, together with a 
fourth, which had been organized, directed their march on 
Chalons. Their columns had passed Bar-le-Duc when, on the 
29th of August, the cavalry ascertained that McMahon, with 
an army which he had improvised at Chalons, was sweeping 
around to the north-east with the evident purpose of reliev- 
ing Bazaine. Instantly the German armies changed direction 
to the right, and moved swiftly to thwart this new adven- 
ture. Intercepted, and bewildered by confused instructions, 
McMahon undertook to turn back towards Paris, but too late. 
The third and fourth armies, under " Our Fritz" and the 
Crown Prince of Saxony, closed in upon him, routed his right 
wing at Beaumont, and drove him back upon the fortress of 
Sedan, on the Belgian frontier. McMahon had with him 
one hundred thousand men, and with these he was resolved 
to show how a marshal of France could fight, and could 
perish, if need be, rather than yield. 

But his heroism was the heroism of despair. At nightfall 
of the 31st of August he was confronted by two hundred and 
forty thousand Germans, with over six hundred pieces of artil- 
lery posted and ready to open fire. Directed by King William 
from the heights of Frenois, the assault upon the French 
positions began at daybreak on the morning of September 1. 
In the lovely valley of the Meuse, sweeping in a vast semicircle 
round the turreted citadel which Vauban built, and the quaint 
old town where Turenne was born, through that bright autumn 
day the conflict raged. After a desperate struggle the Crown 
Prince of Prussia, holding the German left, carried the key- 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 67 

point of the French position, while on the right the fourth array 
likewise stormed and carried the outer lines of McMahon's 
intrenchments. Gallantly the brave old Duke of Magenta en- 
deavored to retake his lost positions, but in vain. He fell des- 
perately wounded, the circle of flame grew steadily narrower, and 
by 4 o'clock P.M. the French army was crowded about the old 
citadel, a disordered, helpless mass. Then the German artil- 
lery began to play upon the fortress, when suddenly a white 
flag was flung out from the battlements, the mighty clangor 
of battle slowly quieted down, and an officer riding out from 
Sedan brought to King William this message from the 
Emperor Napoleon : 

" Not having been able to die among my troops, there re- 
mains to me nothing but to deliver to Your Majesty my sword." 

By the capitulation, signed a few hours later, eighty-three 
thousand men surrendered as prisoners of war, and six hundred 
cannon, twelve thousand horses, and enormous quantities of 
military stores passed into the possession of the victorious 
Germans. 

The war should have ended then and there. France should 
have sued for peace, and taken the best terms she could get, 
which would surely have been better than she afterwards 
obtained. But the cup of her misfortune was not yet full. 
Bruised, bleeding, and distracted, she became the victim first 
of Demagogy, and then of its twin-sister Anarchy. For 
Napoleon III., ambitious of conquest, was substituted Gam- 
betta, ambitious of personal aggrandizement, and reckless as 
the fallen emperor of consequences to his instruments and 
dupes. The triumphant armies of Germany were again defied, 
and the war went on. Within a fortnight the fairest city of 
the world — the queenly patroness of art, music, and all that 
embellishes human existence — was enclasped in a crushing, 
consuming embrace of flame and iron. Army after army was 
levied for her relief, only to be chased down and destroyed. 



6$ EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Strasburg, Metz, and Belfort successively fell, and Paris was 
just reeling to her fall when an event took place which was 
far more important to Germany than all the victories of the 
campaign. That event was the proclamation of the German 
Empire. 

The long-wished-for consummation of German national 
union had at last come of itself, — come, not by direct con- 
trivance, but in the majestic march of events. The states of 
Bavaria, Wurtemberg, Baden, and Hesse no longer needed 
coaxing to enter the German Confederation ; of their own 
accord they demanded it. They were admitted, and by unani- 
mous acclaim of the whole nation the imperial crown and title 
were bestowed upon the King of Prussia. 

On the 18th of January, 1871, — precisely one hundred and 
seventy years after the crowning of the first Prussian king,— 
the proffered dignity and trust were formally accepted. While 
the united German armies were thundering at the gates of 
Paris, the ceremony which, after the dissensions of so many 
centuries, made Germany indeed and in truth one nation, took 
place at Versailles, in the famed palace of Louis the Grand. 
History never presented a more dramatic scene, a more mar- 
vellous episode. To the most gorgeous saloon in the palace — 
the Galerie des Glaces — the flags of the German armies were 
brought, and ranged in the order of their positions before 
Paris. In that saloon Louis XIV. had walked in his pride, 
and from its walls his portrait now looked down upon the 
coalescence of a nation whose people, divided, he had scourged 
with fire and sword. 

In that splendid chamber King William stood surrounded 
by representatives of all the German states and armies, and 
by the standards which those armies had borne through smoke 
and flame at Worth and Weissenburg, at Mars-la-Tour and 
Gravelotte, at Beaumont and Sedan. With his head bowed 
and his arms crossed he reverently listened while, in that place 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. (39 

so unused to devotional sounds, a hymn was sung, and prayers 
were offered. On the wall above was emblazoned the legend, 
Le Roi gouverne par lui me'me ; but the kings of Prussia, said 
the chaplain of the occasion, had achieved their greatness in 
the sign, " The kings of the earth reign under me, saith the 
Lord." The devotional ceremonies concluded, the king, mount- 
ing the dais, announced the re-establishment of the empire, and 
directed Chancellor Bismarck to read his proclamation accepting, 
by unanimous request of the German states, the imperial dignity. 

As the chancellor concluded, the Grand Duke of Baden 
stepped forth and cried, " Es lebe seine Majestat, der deutsche 
Kaiser Wilhelm hoch /" Then the great hall rang with cheer 
after cheer, the band broke in with the thrilling melody, Heil 
Dir im SiegerJcranz, and the Crown Prince Fritz, bending, first 
of all, in homage, was caught up in the arms of his imperial 
father. 

Thus the new German Empire was born, and a new epoch 
in European civilization — yea, in human progress — was begun. 

The achievement of the national union of the German states 
culminated and crowned the life-work of William I. The 
perfection of that union — and it is still far from perfect — 
must be the work of his successors, and of time. Its strongest 
bond must ever be the benefits which it confers, and these have 
already been immense. When William I. ascended the throne 
of Prussia, the German name was scarcely spoken with respect ; 
now it is profoundly honored throughout the world. Then 
the German states, divided among themselves, were the pup- 
pets of foreign intrigue ; now they constitute a nation which is 
the mistress of the European continent. 

Whether German unity could have been accomplished by 
methods radically different from those which William I. em- 
ployed may well be doubted. Had Prussia been converted into 
a republic in 1848, she could neither have acquired nor held 
leadership in the work of consolidating the German nation. 



70 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Austria alone might have crushed her, and other powers would 
have readily united with Austria, if necessary, in stauiping 
her out. ..Her first business was to achieve her continental 
independence, and for this purpose a strong military monarchy 
was best suited. 

It redounds infinitely to the honor of William I. that, as 
creator and head of such a monarchy, he wielded his great 
powers only for the benefit of his people. Firmly as he held 
to the prerogatives of the crown, he was no oppressor, and 
indeed could not be. With law-breaking and anarchy he had 
no patience, and he dealt with them with a strong hand, but 
tyrannical rule was something wholly foreign to his nature. 
Firm and resolute, he had also the gentleness of true man- 
hood, and there was scarcely a German child that did not love 
the little corn-flower because it was the kaiser's favorite. To 
his latest day his eyes would fill with tears when he witnessed 
or heard of human suffering, and when his honest face could 
no longer be seen at his accustomed window, it seemed as if 
darkness had fallen upon all the windows of the land. The 
humblest of his people trusted and honored him as a father, 
and, when he died, mourned him as a friend. They knew full 
well that, whatever he did, he meant it for their good, and 
that whatever faults he might have, or mistakes he might 
make, he was, above all thiugs, honest and true. 

It is said that he was an absolutist, and so he was. But 
let us not mistake the quality of his absolutism. It was not 
of the Roman sort. The Roman emperor's will was law, 
but with the Emperor William duty was law. To his con- 
victions of duty, and his pledges, he was absolutely loyal, and 
in this sense he was an absolutist. Conscientious and firm, his 
was the rare privilege and the rare ability to show that abso- 
lute power is no curse when wielded for the common good, 
and that the beneficence of human government depends less 
upon its form than upon the manner of its administration. 



WILLIAM I., EMPEROR OF GERMANY. 71 

It has been the purpose of this sketch to present William I. 
in the framework of history rather than in that of portraiture. 
Yet his personality constitutes one of the most interesting 
figures of modern times. Much might be said of his noble 
and unaffected majesty of appearance and manner, his fervent 
and steadfast piety, his unswerving integrity, his immovable 
firmness, his physical and moral courage, his untiring industry 
and his extreme simplicity of life. All these attractions and 
virtues he had, and more. He loved popularity as much as 
any man, but he knew how to get along without it, and 
would never seek it at the expense of self-respect or duty. 
With marvellous sagacity in selecting his advisers and helpers 
he united the necessary strength of will to retain them through 
all vicissitudes. No clamor, no compulsion could constrain 
him to dismiss a faithful and able public servant. When 
somebody advised him on a certain occasion that he had better 
get rid of Bismarck, he replied that it wouldn't be fair; Bis- 
marck had not tried to get rid of him. It is true that he 
owed much of his personal success to such helpers, but it is 
equally true, as a French writer admiringly declares, that " it 
is the Williams who make the Bismarcks." We might add 
that no ruler was ever readier to recognize or more gen- 
erous to reward the deservings of his co-workers than was 
William I. 

The world was slow to acknowledge his greatness, and there 
are still those who estimate his intellect at a mediocre grade. 
But what his mind lacked in brilliancy it made up in solidity 
and strength. His was the homely genius of common sense. 
It is a truth, as old as-the Book of Job, that "great men are 
not always wise." Perhaps it may even be said that they are 
seldom wise. But William I. was great because of his 
wisdom. Among the most violent and persistent of his 
antagonists during his long contention with the Prussian Par- 
liament were some of the profoundest scholars and philoso- 



72 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

pliers of the period, but the sequel does not commend their 
judgment as superior to his. " If I wanted to ruin one of my 
provinces/' said Frederick the Great, " I would make over its 
government to the philosophers/' Frederick's great successor, 
William L, was of the same mind. 

That he was a great soldier will hardly be. disputed. He 
gave abundant proof that he had the ability both to organize 
and to lead mighty armies. But he exhibited no less aptitude 
to administer civil government than to command in the field. 
All things considered, no European country was so well 
governed as Germany was while he occupied the imperial 
throne. Her industries were diversified and enlarged, the 
condition of her industrial population was ameliorated, her 
railway, postal, and coinage systems were immensely improved, 
new avenues were opened to her continental and trans-oeeanic 
trade, and her merchant marine was developed until it became 
second in extent and prosperity only to that of England. 

" Cromwell, Washington, and Napoleon," wrote Mr. Buckle, 
" are perhaps the only first-rate modern warriors of whom it 
can fairly be said that they were equally competent to govern 
a kingdom and command an army." 

We may now add to these one other : William I., founder 
and first ruler of the new German Empire. 



CHAPTER VI. 

GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 

The origin of the Germanic race lies far back in the twi- 
light of history. No authentic records of the earlier inhabi- 
tants of Germany exist. Before the time of Julius Caesar the 
Romans knew very little of the people who dwelt east of the 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 73 

Rhine and north of the Danube. The European continent 
north of the Alps was for the most part one vast, mysterious 
forest. But the invasion of Gaul by the Roman armies 
developed the fact that the country beyond the Rhine was 
inhabited by a numerous people, given to agriculture, — a race, 
say the Roman writers, " free from any foreign intermixture, 
as proved by their physiognomy ;. with fierce blue eyes, deep- 
yellow hair, a robust frame, and gigantic height ; inured to 
cold and hunger, but not to thirst and heat ; warlike, honest, 
faithful, friendly and unsuspicious toward friends, but toward 
enemies cunning and dissembling; scorning every restraint, 
considering independence as the most precious of all things, 
and therefore ready to give up life rather than liberty. . . . 
Valor was the grace of man, chastity the virtue of woman." 

Such were the aboriginal Germans. They had no towns or 
cities, but dwelt mostly in small communities, holding prop- 
erty in common. They were divided into over fifty tribes, of 
which the Alemanni, Suevi, Burgundians, Goths, Vandals, and 
others figure conspicuously in ancient history. 

After CaBsar's victory over Ariovistus and his conquest of 
Gaul, the Roman armies overran much of the country and 
established a line of fortified outposts from the Rhine to the 
Danube. The present city of Mayence on the Rhine was the 
head-quarters of the army of Drusus, and to this day relics of 
the Drusus colony and garrison continue to be found there 
whenever a fresh excavation is made, insomuch that the city 
possesses a remarkably interesting musuein of such antiquities, 
reflecting alike the customs, superstitions, and vices of the 
ancient Romans. The old city of Treves, in the valley of the 
Moselle, possesses an immense Roman amphitheatre, and a 
great three-storied Roman gate-way (Porta Nigra), rivalling 
in its stately dimensions any of the triumphal arches which 
survive imperial Rome. 

Within a few years past the remains of a Roman soldier in 
d 7 



74 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

full armor were exhumed near Frankfort-on-the-Main, and 
in that, as in other parts of the Rhine Valley, Roman antiqui- 
ties are still from time to time coming to light. Evidently 
the Romans came to Germany intending to stay there, and yet 
they were never more than temporary occupants of the coun- 
try, for no sooner did they undertake to assert by force of 
arms the rights of conquest than they were overwhelmingly 
defeated. 

The political and social life of modern Germany bears the 
stamp of these ancient experiences and characteristics of the 
German people. The tribes into which the inhabitants of the 
country were originally divided perpetuated their distinctions 
through a long course of feudalities and petty despotisms until 
they crystallized into the existing German states. The tribal 
divisions are still traceable in differences of dialect, tempera- 
ment, physiognomy, and social and political customs. The 
German social estate is therefore a curious conglomerate, a 
multiform, many-hued, ever-changing mosaic, puzzling and 
misleading to the superficial student, and comprehensible only 
through close observation and prolonged and patient study. 
The sectional and local diversities of the people are endless, 
and nearly every important town or district has social customs 
and a form of language peculiar to itself. The province, dis- 
trict, and even city or town from which strangers come can be 
guessed with precision from their dialect, dress, and manners. 

Hence it is that travellers and transient writers give such 
various and conflicting accounts of the German people. Flit- 
ting by rail from town to town, and sojourning mostly in 
hotels, ordinary tourists see nothing at all of the real social 
life of the Germans, and yet sometimes presume to tell us all 
about it. Out of their fragmentary knowledge and superficial 
impressions newspapers are supplied with flippant correspond- 
ence, and whole volumes of misinformation are written. 

Generally, too, writers of this class know very little, if any- 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 75 

thing, of the German language, without a fair knowledge of 
which it is very difficult to obtain anything like a correct 
understanding of the intellectual and social life of the people. 
Most educated Germans, it is true, speak English more or 
less fluently, and French is much spoken in social and diplo- 
matic intercourse. But no language brings the strauger into 
such intimate relations with the people, and so reveals to him 
their modes of thought, action, and feeling, as their native 
tongue. 

To most adult Americans the German is a difficult language 
to learn, and not especially attractive. Macaulay is said to 
have mastered it in three months, which probably means that 
he acquired in that length of time a fair book-knowledge of 
its grammatical principles. Charles V. called it " the lan- 
guage of horses," but in his day its euphonious and literary 
possibilities were but dimly realized. Wielaud had not then 
written his " Oberon," nearly every stanza of which is music 
itself; and Lessing, Schiller, and Goethe had not given to the 
world their immortal verse. 

The drolleries of the language, its oddities of grammatical 
construction, its curious compounding and dividing asunder 
of words, its arbitrary distinctions of gender, — all these, to- 
gether with the difficulties which American travellers and so- 
journers in Germany experience in assimilating the vernacular 
of the country, have been duly set forth by one of our famous 
American humorists, who has made out of them a very 
amusing chapter of his "Tramp Abroad." The Germans 
heartily enjoy this mirth at their expense, and are otherwise 
well repaid for it in the amusement which is furnished them 
by the linguistic exploits of German-learning Englishmen 
and Americans. At the same time, our Teutonic friends are 
extremely patient with us, and seldom appear to notice our 
mistakes. Out of the debris of our wrecked sentences and 
confused misplacements and misconceptions of words and 



76 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

idioms they will quietly gather our meaning, and when our 
vocabulary and its capacity for grammatical mischief are ex- 
hausted, they will soothingly remark in good, plain English, 
« Why, how well you speak German ! What excellent prog- 
ress you have made !" 

This considerate treatment of tyros in their language is not 
only something which we ought to be grateful for and recipro- 
cate; it is also an illustration of what has been called the 
politesse de cceur of the Germans. Their friendly interest in 
everybody about them, even to strangers and aliens, is a note- 
worthy trait, amounting, almost, to a national characteristic. 
A stranger may travel all day with Englishmen, even in the 
same carriage or coupe, and never receive, in word or act, the 
slightest recognition of his existence. Quite otherwise in 
Germany. Both on joining and leaving us our German fel- 
low-travellers will not fail to salute us with their cheery guten 
Tag, and, if not repelled, they will not be apt to omit still 
further evidences of their friendly attention. At an English 
dinner party, a guest may find himself in a state of solemn 
isolation amidst strangers, to whom he has not been introduced, 
whom he dare not approach, and by whom he is industriously 
ignored. The German usage is in pleasant contrast with this. 
No sooner does the unacquainted guest cross the threshold 
than the host or hostess takes pains to introduce him to the 
principal people present, who, in turn, exert themselves to 
make him feel thoroughly at home in their company. 

This " politeness of the heart" finds expression on the most 
ordinary occasions, and from people in all conditions of life. 
The servant who presents a glass of beer or a plate of food 
will accompany it with his good-natured Gesundheit, or guten 
Appetit, or lass 7 es gut Schmecken ; and even the maid who 
prepares one's bath will not omit her wohl bekomm's when all 
is ready. If you go out to a party or a concert, the Diener 
who helps you on with your overcoat or into your carriage 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 77 

will be sure to wish you viel Vergnilgen, and when you go away 
on a journey, full many a gluckliche Meise will follow you. The 
stranger who sits down at a public table salutes those near 
him, and when he rises to go away does the same, adding his 
gesegnete Mahlzeit to those with whom he has held conversa- 
tion. If a gentleman helps a lady to wine at table, he takes 
care to pour a little first into his own glass, so that if any 
particles of cork or dust should adhere to the mouth of the 
bottle he will get them, and not she. 

Men seldom wear their hats in their places of business, and 
customers coming into a business office remove theirs. On 
leaving such a place it is usual to salute the proprietors and 
their assistants, particularly when either or both happen to be 
ladies, as a large majority of the sales-people are. If a cus- 
tomer asks for his Rechnung, it is sure to be endorsed auf 
Wunsch, and when it comes back receipted after payment it 
will as surely be superscribed Eine schone Empfehhmg, or 
Herr lasst schon danken. 

How much these little phrases and attentions, which cost 
nothing, soften the jolts and smooth down the asperities of 
human experience need not be stated. They embellish life, 
make it seem worth living, and help us immensely to feel that 
we are, after all, of some account in the world. 

Handshaking is not so common in Germany as with us, 
and is seldom indiscriminately practised. The universal 
mode of salutation on the part of men is that of lifting the 
hat. Ladies receive the first recognition instead of giving it, 
and strangers must make first calls instead of being first 
called upon. The uses of the card in calling and exchanging 
compliments are considered with much nicety, and are so 
regulated as to express plainly and yet with delicacy the un- 
written laws of social intercourse. Both desire and disin- 
clination for nearer acquaintance are carefully indicated by 
cards ; compliments are conveyed by them and congratulations 

7* 



78 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

exchanged. When death occurs, card messengers remind the 
bereaved of the sympathetic remembrances of their acquaint- 
ances. Visits of condolence are not made unless by near 
relatives and friends, nor are the bereaved obliged to make 
public exposure of their grief. The remains of the deceased 
are often followed to the tomb by empty carriages only, not 
even the afflicted family accompanying them should the 
weather be inclement. 

The customs and ceremonies attending betrothal and mar- 
riage differ widely from ours. Prior to the Verlobung, or 
betrothal, the intercourse of young unmarried people can, as a 
rule, only take place in the presence or by the express consent 
of their parents, and German ladies have often expressed to 
me their astonishment that in America, as they had heard, 
young ladies not betrothed were permitted to receive and ac- 
company young gentlemen without parental attendance. Be- 
trothal, indeed, is often the first stage of real acquaintance, the 
intercourse of the contracting parties before that being of a 
comparatively formal character. The Verlobung is generally 
considered a more important act than the Trauung, or marriage, 
and the breaking off of an engagement causes more scandal 
than a divorce. After engagement, the parties engaged are 
Bread and Brautigam, but cease to be such after marriage. 
Once engaged, they may accompany each other when and where 
they like, and on social occasions are treated much the same 
as husband and wife. 

By imperial law, a man becomes qualified to contract mar- 
riage when twenty, and a girl when sixteen years of age, but a 
man may not marry without the consent of his father, or other 
guardian, until he is twenty-five, nor a girl until she is twenty- 
four. Whether a marriage contracted without the consent of 
guardians is valid or not is a matter regulated by the legisla- 
tion of the different states. 

It is a sort of unwritten law — a sequence of actual statutes 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 79 

now abolished — that a man should not marry until he has 
some visible and reliable means of supporting a family. 
Parents are careful to have their children mated with those of 
equal social station, and it is worthy of remark that rank and 
position are more highly considered in a matrimonial way than 
wealth, although that is a matter by no means despised. Some 
years ago a distinguished Heidelberg professor wrote a book 
which aimed to prove that the daughters of wealthy men of 
business are destined, in the order of uature, to marry lawyers 
and civil service officials, and that the daughters born of such 
marriages are destined to marry business men, with a view to 
acquiring wealth wherewith to endow their daughters, in turn, 
for marriage into the civil service. Thus the business, or 
middle, class would provide wealth, and the official class social 
distinction, and the balance would be preserved. 

The arrangement of the dot, or marriage portion, prior to 
betrothal, is something that must not be neglected, and its 
amount for each of the contracting parties is settled in advance 
by their parents. 

The marriage ceremony is usually performed twice, — once 
after the civil and once after the religious form, — but only the 
civil contract is valid in law. . By imperial statute of February 
6, 1875, " marriage is to be concluded in the presence of two 
witnesses, by the betrothed persons severally declaring their 
agreement, when asked by the proper officer whether they 
announce their intention of uniting; in marriage with each 
other, and by his thereupon proclaiming that they are both 
legally married." The same law forbids any clergyman, or 
other minister of religion, to execute these functions, or to act 
as a substitute for the civil officer. The civil ceremony there- 
fore takes precedence in the order of time, as in that of legal 
importance. First, however, there must be a publication of 
the banns at least two weeks before the contract is signed, and 
this precaution, together with the parental restraints, has a 



80 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

wholesome effect in preventing hasty and ill-considered mar- 
riages. 

Many of the traditional usages attending the marriage cere- 
mony, particularly among the peasantry, are very curious, but 
the etiquette of weddings is not eccentric. German etiquette, 
in general, is a system of social customs which has grown up 
with the people, and which is adapted to promote as well as 
protect social intercourse. It may be added that, in the best 
German society, people are not received very much on trust. 
They must prove their quality before obtaining favor. Vulgar 
wealth is not admitted to the circle of the intellectual and re- 
fined, and civil or military position carries with it infinitely 
more social privilege than money, simply because the process 
by which alone such position can be reached in Germany is 
itself a guarantee of merit. Artists, actors, musicians, and 
scientific and literary people of distinction, or of passably good 
professional standing, are constantly invited to the tables of 
noblemen and millionaires. 

It has been said that behavior at the table is the best test of 
manners, and that a fine dinner is the crowning exponent of 
civilized life. However this may be, a dinner-party in the 
refined circles of Germany is certainly one of the most char- 
acteristic and charming illustrations of the social life of the 
people. Formal invitations to dinner are generally given 
upon an engraved card, with date and hour in writing, and 
must be accepted or declined without delay. They may be 
sent through the post, or, as is more customary, delivered by 
special messenger. The hour fixed is intended to be exact, 
and guests are expected to be punctual to the minute. I shall 
not forget the first invitation of this kind which I received, 
for I happened to be about ten minutes late, and my worthy 
host greeted me with a good-natured reprimand by saying that 
he had begun to grow anxious lest something had happened 
to me. 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. %\ 

At the precise hour appointed the company proceeds to the 
table, the host escorting the most distinguished lady guest. 
The seating is managed diplomatically so as to bring congenial 
people together, and much attention is given to table decora- 
tion, for which purpose, in every season, flowers are liberally 
used. The dinner is served a la Russe, but the finest meats 
are sometimes brought in and shown to the guests before being 
carved. 

When the dinner is concluded the ladies are escorted to the 
salon, and the gentlemen withdraw to the smoking-room. 
Thus an opportunity is given to the former to discuss the latest 
fashions, and to the latter to exchange opinions concerning 
affairs on the bourse. In the smoking-room cafe noir is served, 
and also cognac and other cordials. After the gentlemen have 
finished their cigars and coffee, they return to the salon, and 
spend the remainder of the evening with the ladies. 

The recipient of dinner courtesies is expected to acknowl- 
edge them within a reasonable time by a return call, which 
may be made by card, but there is no strict debit and credit 
system of reciprocation of social favors. People are often in- 
vited again and again without any return of the compliment 
being asked or thought of. 

The Germans are a music-loving people, and this fact has 
much to do with their social customs and enjoyments. Musical 
composition almost amounts to a national industry, and of 
musical clubs and societies there is no end. Nearly every 
large city has at least one orchestra of sixty or seventy per- 
formers, which in any country where musicians of such train- 
ing and skill are less common would be famous. Many plain 
business men — merchants, bankers, and others — are really 
excellent vocalists, pianists, or violinists. 

The people are passionately fond of the opera and the 
drama, both of which are supported, in part, by public sub- 
sidies. The usual hour for beginning theatrical performances 
/ 



82 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

is 6 o'clock p.m., and they seldom continue later than nine, 
or half-past. Ladies, as well as gentlemen, leave their wraps 
and head-wear in the Garderobe before entering the audi- 
torium, — an arrangement which enables the masculine part of 
the audience to see the stage, whatever fashion may prevail in 
ladies' bonnets. 

German theatrical audiences are models of decorum. This 
is due, in part, to strict regulations and police surveillance, but 
in larger degree it is the result of popular habit and training. 

During a fine concert or opera no one may be admitted until 
an interval occurs, and while the music is in progress all other 
sound is absolutely hushed. There is not a cough, not a 
movement, not a discordant noise. The applause, when de- 
served, is hearty and prolonged, but is always timely and 
decorous. 

Nor is the pleasure derived from music by any means ex- 
clusive with those who can pay for fine operas and concerts. 
It is the fireside recreation of the people, and humble is the 
home where it is not enjoyed. For the public recreation ex- 
cellent concerts are provided at the parks and gardens, and 
are accessible to all. In the public gardens of Frankfort one 
afternoon concert per week is given especially for ladies and 
children, and on such occasions the elegant music-halls are 
always crowded. The ladies bring their crochet-work, and 
gossip over their coffee, and the little folks enjoy the games 
provided for them, or stroll amidst the fountains and flowers. 

The Germans delight in open-air life. Every house of any 
pretensions has its garden, if only a few square feet of sodded 
space, where the family may sit and enjoy the fresh air and the 
sunlight and shade. They abhor anything like a draught in- 
doors, and keep their houses shut tight, but think nothing of 
sitting for hours in the family garden, and taking their meals 
there whenever the weather will at all permit. Gardens, parks 
and promenades for general recreation are provided in every 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 83 

considerable town, while, by low fares and frequent trains, the 
railways afford on Sundays and holidays the most ample 
facilities possible for excursions to the country. 

The fashionable hour for promenading is from 1 1 a.m. to 1 
P.M. At one everybody sits down to dinner. The banks close 
at that hour, and remain closed until 4 p.m. The bourse is 
open for business from twelve o'clock noon until 1 p.m., and a 
second time later in the afternoon. 

Dinner and supper are the principal meals. A German 
breakfast consists of Zwiebacken or Brodschens and coffee, 
with perhaps boiled eggs. Supper is taken at seven or eight 
o'clock, or postponed until after the theatre. Laborers have 
four or five Essens a day, and most business men luuch be- 
tween meals. 

Wine and beer drinking is universal, but no more temperate 
people exists than the Germans. During a sojourn of several 
years among them, I do not remember to have seen half a 
dozen persons intoxicated. During a festal occasion lasting 
three or four days, which brought thirty thousand strangers to 
Frankfort, not over seven or eight persons, it was stated, were 
arrested for disorderly conduct. 

Drunkenness is more disgraceful than it is in this country. 
Men do not go into a " saloon" and stand up before a " bar" 
and drink themselves drunk. What Americans call " treat- 
ing" is unknown. Each one pays for what he gets, as an 
honest man should, and expects his friends and companions to 
do the same. People who take refreshments at a restaurant or 
beer-garden sit down by the tables and eat and drink leisurely. 
The popular beverages, as a rule, are mild, pure, and whole- 
gome, and a dinner, however humble, is not a dinner in Ger- 
many without beer or wine. Yet the people are not given to 
nervousness or inebriety, and have comparatively little stomach- 
ache, so far as I have been able to notice. 

At the same time it should be stated that the traffic in all 



84 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

kinds of alcoholic beverages is strictly regulated by law. The 
license system, or its equivalent, is the prevailing one, though 
different laws as to the traffic prevail in the different states 
and provinces. A broad distinction is drawn between the 
establishments which traffic only in beer and wine, and those 
which also sell spirituous liquors. New establishments of 
either kind can only be opened by police permission, and then 
only upon a showing of reasonable public demand for the 
business. Disorderly and immoral places may be suppressed 
by police fiat, and it should be noted that the tenure of office 
by the police authorities does not depend, directly or in- 
directly, upon what Americans would call the " saloon vote." 
Indeed, we may almost say that the saloon does not exist in 
Germany, — at least, not in our sense of the word. 

German housekeeping methods differ materially from the 
American. In the first place, the houses are differently con- 
structed and furnished from ours. An American visiting 
Germany once remarked to me that it seemed very odd to him 
to see dwellings " with the front door in the rear." The 
French system of etages, or flats, is common in cities, and the 
choice part of the house is not the rez-de-chaussee, or first 
floor, but that we call the second. This is in Germany the 
erster Stoch, or first story, and between it and the lower floor, 
or parterre, there sometimes intervenes a narrow story called 
the entresol. Each floor is complete in itself for all the pur- 
poses of housekeeping, with a permanent kitchen range built 
to stay. Cellar space and garden privileges are apportioned 
to the different families occupying the Mages, and their servants 
colonize in the attic. In point of convenience and comfort, 
New York and Philadelphia have greatly improved upon the 
German flat system. 

In the more expensive dwellings parquetry floors are laid, 
and these are waxed and burnished until smooth as glass. In 
more unpretentious homes the floors are painted and varnished. 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 85 

Carpets covering" the entire floor are seldom seen; artistic 
squares, or Vorlage, being used instead. Living-rooms are 
heated by Kachelofen, or porcelain stoves, and wood is the pre- 
vailing fuel. The coal is inferior to ours, and is drenched 
with water before being laid upon the fire. 

Madame, whatever her social station, carries the keys and 
personally supervises the servants. Ladies of the highest 
birth and education understand all the details of housekeeping, 
and are not above taking a practical interest in what is going 
on in the kitchen. They are trained to this in the cooking-, 
sewing-, and boarding-schools, — a kind of education which 
vastly contributes both to the comfort and the economy of 
German home-life. 

Children are trained to obey. Insubordination in the family 
or the school is treated much the same as insubordination in 
the army. The little German maid no sooner learns to talk 
than she begins to knit, sew, and embroider, and make herself 
otherwise useful in the house. If her parents have any means 
at all, a thoroughly ornamental as well as practical education 
is within her reach. In short, she grows up to be an accom- 
plished and contented mistress of a house, — a real helpmeet, — 
knowing how to cook, sew, sing, dance, embroider, take care 
of children, and write and speak in two or three languages. 

Her little brother, as soon as he is six years old, starts for 
school, and education is a serious matter with him from that 
time on until he finishes the gymnasium. He has little time 
for play except on stated holidays, and woe betide him if he 
does not give diligent attention to the tasks set for him out- 
side of school-hours. Besides the " three It's," he must learn 
Latin, Greek, French, English, German, higher mathematics, 
natural science, geography, and history. The course of the 
gymnasium is equivalent to that of an American college, and 
when he is through with that he may go to the University. 
Then, if he passes the Examen, he must serve one year in the 



86 EUROPEAN DAYS AND' WAYS. 

army, and, if he does not pass it, three years. After that he 
goes into the public service or a profession, or learns and finally 
inherits the business of his father. 

The ideal German home is a model of order, cleanliness, 
comfort, and loving domestic harmony. The women, as a 
rule, are quite contented with home and its duties, and leave 
the cares of state and the rugged work of reform to the men. 
Yet the sphere of woman is by no means exclusively domestic. 
The pursuits of literature, the fine arts, and business are all 
freely opened to her. 

The Germans believe in recreation for the family and by the 
family. Parents and children sit together in the public gardens 
listening to the concerts, visit together the theatre and the opera, 
and unite in family excursions and tours. What one enjoys 
they all enjoy, so far as their means go, except that, by the cus- 
tom of the country, the head of the family is allowed to spend 
a certain part of his time with his Verein, or club. I once 
asked a German married lady whether or not she liked to have 
her husband visit nearly every evening, as he did, a club to which 
I belonged, and she assured me that she preferred to have him 
do so, " for," said she, " this brightens him up, and makes him 
a better companion for me than he would be were I to insist 
upon his spending all his leisure at home. Then, too," she 
added, reflectively, " I might get a little tired of him if he 
were about the house too much." 

One of the most attractive features of German home-life is 
its faithful observance of family anniversaries. Few things 
contribute more to make the home circle delightful than this. 
The little child — and the full-grown one as well — counts the 
days, the hours almost, until its Geburtstag comes round. 
And when the day arrives it is sure to be observed in a way to 
make the honored one feel that it is a good thing to be born 
into the world, a good thing to have a home and loving 
parents, friends, brothers, and sisters. The house is dressed 



GERMAN SOCIAL AND FAMILY LIFE. 87 

en /Me, cards of congratulation with flowers and other gifts 
come in from all round the circle of acquaintance, tapers are 
lighted denoting the number of years the happy one has fin- 
ished, and a family dinner and reunion crown the festivities. 

I once had the happiness to be invited to spend a few days 
with a friend at his summer villa on the Rhine, and when we 
went down the first time to dinner we found the table gar- 
nished with flowers, and the chairs upon which my good 
friend and his wife were to sit wreathed with roses and lilies. 
It was their wedding anniversary, and the^children had done 
this to signify their loving remembrance of the day. How 
beautiful it was, and how happy we all were, albeit the place 
of him who was chief in that delightful circle was soon after- 
wards forever vacant ! 

But the noblest of all family anniversaries is the German 
Christmas. It is not a single holiday, as with us, but a cluster 
of two or three together, and the quaint old legends and tradi- 
tional observances — domestic, social, and religious — connected 
with it are many and beautiful. What visions of happy faces 
and what echoes of sweet cathedral chimes haunt my recollec- 
tion as I think of them ! In many parts of Germany, Christ- 
mas is called " The Children's Festival," and such it is ; but 
it is a festival at which all are children, whether old or young. 

Should German habits and customs be adopted by Ameri- 
cans ? To some extent they should be. After ten centuries of 
experience, the Germans have arrived at certain fixed conclu- 
sions as to what is best for them in the conditions under 
which they live, and so far as the conditions of our life are 
the same, those conclusions are equally wise for us. 

It is the misfortune of our people that they have not yet 
learned how to enjoy life in the present as it is their privilege 
to do. The Germans are adepts at this. They act upon the 
Horatian admonition, carpe diem. They have a proverb, Be- 
quemlichkeit geht dem Deutschen uber Alles, — with the German, 



88 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

comfort goes before everything, — and this is a key to their 
domestic and social life. They believe, with Kenan, that 
"sunshine is a fine thing, life an excellent gift, and the land 
of the living a very pleasant place to sojourn in," and they 
do not see why they should not enjoy these things as much 
as they innocently can. 

Too much of our social life is mere pretension ; it glitters, 
but it is not gold. The real contact of noble and congenial 
minds is not there. The social life of Germany, on the other 
hand, is realistic, and repels shams. It seeks out and holds 
fast the genuine good, true, and beautiful. It shows us, 
moreover, as in a mirror, that real happiness is not at a distance, 
but near at hand, waiting for and inviting us to reach out and 
grasp it. 



CHAPTER VII. 

HOW THE GERMANS EDUCATE. 

It has been said of the Germans that they are the most 
learned people in the world. If this is not an exaggerated 
compliment, the fact is mainly due to the operations of a 
system of education which, for the circumstances and purposes 
to which it is applied, is the best in existence. 

This system should be judged, not exclusively by its apti- 
tude to the social and political conditions under which we live 
on this continent, but with special reference to the circum- 
stances under which it has been created, and for which it is 
intended. As shoes made on American lasts have been found 
unsuited to German feet, so a scheme of education which has 
been fashioned according to the German mind and character 
would need some modifications to adapt it to American con- 



HOW THE GERMANS EDUCATE. 89 

ditions. Yet the fundamental principles of education are the 
same, whether in one country or another. 

The criticism has been made on American schools that boys 
and girls on leaving them " rarely know how to continue their 
education by themselves. They have not learned to study, and 
if they read at all, they confine themselves to the daily news- 
paper and the weekly novel." To such results the German 
system does not tend. Its primary aim is to develop the 
faculty of independent thinking and reasoning. It does not 
cram. It assumes, as has been properly said, that " a man's 
success in life depends immeasurably more upon his capacities 
for useful action than upon his acquirements in knowledge." 
It prefers to strengthen the memory rather than to cumber it 
with facts. It develops the power of fixing the attention. 
The abecedarian and the university student are alike, in the 
true sense of the word educate, induced or drawn out to think 
for themselves. 

The means by which these results are accomplished have 
been perfected by centuries of experience and study. Teach- 
ing is, in Germany, not a makeshift, but a profession. It is 
studied as a science, under the supervision of the government, 
represented by learned and capable men. The teacher must be 
a thorough scholar, but not a mere routinist. The forms and 
methods given him are not to be followed mechanically; he 
must have the ability to so apply them as to accomplish their 
intended purpose, fie is expected to be no less diligent in 
private study — for which he has ample leisure — than in his 
school-room duties. 

The teacher is almost invariably a person of high social 
station, and deservedly so. The position he holds is one which 
cannot be reached except by scholarly and personal merit. 
His profession is therefore respected not more because of its 
importance than because of the qualifications of those who fol- 
low it. Teaching is also well paid. Teachers who show them- 



90 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

selves qualified and diligent are not only sure of permanent 
employment, regardless of personal or political favoritism, but 
have good salaries, as compared with other professions, and in 
case of disability from age or sickness are pensioned. 

The institutions in which teachers are specially trained for 
their profession are called seminaries. Their course of study 
varies in duration from one to three years. 

The proportion of female to male teachers is small. In 
1861 it was but five per cent. ; in 1879 it was nine and one- 
half per cent. Down to 1873 female teachers had no fixed 
position in Prussia, their employment being resorted to only 
when male teachers could not be had. This discrimination was 
due not entirely to sex, but chiefly to difference in training. 
Until 1877 there were but seven seminaries in Prussia for the 
education of female teachers, and two of these were schools for 
governesses. Of late the Ministry of Public Instruction has 
made considerable effort both to improve the quality and to 
enlarge the opportunities of female teachers. 

All the schools, private as well as public, are under the 
direct inspection and supervision of the government. The 
chief of each managing board, from the highest to the lowest, 
is appointed by the crown, and vested with power to veto any 
act of the body over which he presides. No teacher can be 
appointed, even in the private schools, whose qualifications, 
moral and professional, have not successfully passed the gov- 
ernment test. The schools are free except that a small tuition 
fee is charged, but remitted when the parents are unable to pay 
it. The individual parishes are expected to maintain their 
own schools, but when necessary receive assistance from the 
state. The sexes are taught together in the primary course, 
but in all the higher classes separately. Attendance is com- 
pulsory for all children from six to fourteen years of age. The 
usual school-hours are from 8 to 12 a.m. and 2 to 4 p.m., but 
the lessons must be studied chiefly at home. 



HOW THE GERMANS EDUCATE. 91 

The duration of the primary training is three years, after 
which choice may be made between the three different classes 
of higher schools known respectively as the gymnasia, the 
Realschulen, and the Gewerbeschulen. The gymnasium is, as its 
name implies, a training-school chiefly, — a palsestra for the 
intellectual faculties. The classics being deemed of the first 
importance for mental training, they hold a leading place in 
its curriculum, which comprises eight different grades, denomi- 
nated — from lowest to highest — as sexta, quinta, quarta, tertia, 
lower secunda, upper secunda, lower prima, and upper prima. 
The time required to complete this course is from eight to 
nine years. The four lower grades are adapted to general 
training, the four upper to preparation for the University. 
The number of recitations required per week varies in dif- 
ferent years from twenty-five to thirty-two, not including 
gymnastics or instruction in music. Boys may be admitted 
to the gymnasium at nine or ten years of age, provided they 
understand the ordinary rules of arithmetic, and can write 
with reasonable correctness in German and Latin characters. 

The majority of the pupils in the lower grades of the 
gymnasium come from the middle, or business and producing, 
class of society. Not aspiring to a political, scientific, or 
literary career, such pupils seldom advance beyond the grade 
of lower secunda ; which is to say, they quit school in their 
sixteenth or seventeenth year, after having remained just long 
enough to reduce their period of military service from three 
years to one. 

The studies in the upper grades of the gymnasium are lim- 
ited chiefly to the classics, physics, and higher mathematics. 
The pupils in these grades are therefore mainly such as wish to 
prepare themselves for a literary, professional, or higher busi- 
ness career, or who expect to enter the civil or military ser- 
vice. Most of those who wish to be educated for mercantile 
or industrial pursuits attend the Realschulen. 



92 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

The penalties for breaches of discipline in the gymnasium 
are reproof, confinement in the class-room or the school career, 
and expulsion. 

The Realschulen having been established to satisfy the demand 
for a more utilitarian course of study than that of the gymnasia, 
are chiefly distinguished from the latter in being less classical. 
Originally the classics were entirely excluded from the Real- 
schulen, but with such palpable disadvantage to their efficiency 
as compared with the gymnasia that the study of Latin was 
required, by popular demand, in their higher grades. The 
course of study in the Realsehule is divided into six grades, 
comprising German, English, French, Latin, geography, his- 
tory, natural science, mathematics, mechanics, vocal music, and 
gymnastics. This course requires from thirty to thirty-two 
hours of school attendance per week. Pupils are admitted at 
the age of seven, and complete the course in about seven years. 
The further extension of classical study in the Realschulen has 
many advocates, as has also the proposition to merge these 
schools with the first five grades of the gymnasium. 

Both in the Realsclmlen and the gymnasia all special training 
for any particular profession or business is strictly forbidden. 
Any attempt to warp the child's tastes in this respect, in defi- 
ance or disregard of its natural bent, is deemed a grievous 
wrong. The course of instruction is therefore applied exclu- 
sively to the development of the faculties in a general way, 
without any attempt to dictate their application. Education 
is made subservient to the preparation of the neophyte for 
whatever sphere of usefulness he may in maturer years choose 
to enter ; upon the choice of the sphere Nature is permitted to 
exercise her influence unrestrained. 

There are, however, numerous schools for special purposes, 
such, for example, as the Handelschulen, or trade schools, in 
which the various branches of commercial education are taught. 
These schools are not only held in high estimation at home, 



HOW THE GERMANS EDUCATE. 93 

but have a reputation outside of Germany which brings them 
considerable foreign patronage. 

Another class of special schools are the Gewerbeschulen, of 
which there are two grades, — upper and lower, — the upper being 
identical with the Realschulen except that the study of Latin is 
omitted. In these schools boys are prepared for a career in 
business, or in the mechanic arts, and also for admission to the 
polytechnic schools, to which the Real- and Gewerbeschulen stand 
in the same relation as do the gymnasia to the universities. 
The duration of the course in the lower Gewerbe or industrial 
school is four years, in the upper two. Its curriculum embraces 
modern languages, sacred and profane history, chemistry, 
mathematics, architecture, mechanics, drawing, vocal music, 
and practical employment in workshops. Competitive exam- 
inations are forbidden in these schools, on the ground that they 
engender feverish and spasmodic effort. In truth, such ex- 
aminations are not known to any of the German schools in the 
sense in which they are commonly understood. The purpose 
of the examination is not to provoke intellectual combat be- 
tween the pupils, but to test their power to think and reason. 

The Gewerbeschulen are patronized by the patrician, middle, 
and lower classes alike, and are accessible to all boys having 
the ambition to study and be useful. 

The theory and practice of agriculture are taught in thirty 
different institutions in Prussia. Thirteen of these are special 
schools, in which a practical training in particular branches of 
agriculture and horticulture is given. Twelve are primary 
schools the pupils in which work as wage-earners on model 
farms. Itinerant teachers — Wanderlehrer — are employed by 
the government to travel from village to village and give in- 
struction in these schools. An agricultural college at Darm- 
stadt receives young farmers from November 1 to March 31. 
The Wiirtemberg government has established an institution 
similar to this at Hohenheim, besides maintaining a depart- 



94 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

merit of agriculture in connection with the University at 
Tiibingen. Other valuable agencies for the spread of agri- 
cultural knowledge are found in numerous voluntary associa- 
tions of farmers, who meet at stated times to profit by lectures 
and experiments pertaining to their industry. 

The schools for girls — Tochterschulen — are many and ad- 
mirable. Their system of instruction is not merely ornamen- 
tal ; it is practical as well. Instruction in needlework and 
housekeeping is made as essential as that in French or music. 

Complaints of excessive tasking in the schools have led to 
much animated discussion. A great deal of juvenile head- 
ache and some insanity have been attributed to this cause, but 
with what justice it would be difficult to say. Another sub- 
ject which has awakened much earnest inquiry is the preva- 
lence of myopia among school-children. In Bavaria, more 
than twelve per cent, of the children are short-sighted. There 
may be cases in which this affection is due to excessive study, 
as is sometimes supposed, but a more obvious cause of it would 
seem to be the peculiar construction of the German alphabet, 
both the written and printed characters of which are certainly 
very trying to the eyes. A Russian lady who had correspond- 
ence in the German language with Longfellow once told me 
that the poet begged her to use Latin characters, saying, " The 
German schrift tears my eyes out like a hawk." 

The universities are not only controlled and mainly sup- 
ported by the government, but form part of its machinery. 
They are the gate-ways through which alone not only the 
learned professions, but the higher civil service can be reached. 
They " exist for imperial purposes," says Bismarck. Their 
officers and professors are appointed by the Minister of Public 
Instruction, who exercises control of all their administrative 
affairs. Excepting the universities at Heidelberg, Greifswald, 
and Leipsic, which are partly supported by independent en- 
dowment, these institutions all derive their maintenance from 



HOW THE GERMANS EDUCATE. 95 

state appropriations. The government further manifests its 
interest and pride in these great disseminators of learning by 
generous contributions for their improvement. Of this the 
University at Strasbourg furnishes a striking illustration. 
Within the past ten years the buildings and equipment of that 
splendid institution have been renovated and enlarged at an 
expense of about three million dollars, most of which was paid 
from public funds. 

The universities have each four ordinary faculties, — those of 
law, medicine, theology, and philosophy. To these there is 
sometimes added a faculty for political economy, and some- 
times one for natural science. Admission to the University 
course can be obtained only through the test of examination 
after the studies of the gymnasium or the preparatory school 
have been completed, but an exception to this is made in favor 
of foreigners, who are admitted without examination. The 
duration of the course is from four to five years, its purpose 
being to prepare the student for professional or public life. 

When the abiturient, or graduate of the gymnasium, comes 
to the University, his mental training is supposed to be sub- 
stantially completed. His next step is to acquire the knowl- 
edge necessary to the practical use of his faculties. Released 
from the dominion of taskmasters, he is now cast upon his own 
intellectual resources, and must think and investigate for him- 
self. His studies, hitherto enforced, are henceforth voluntary, 
but, if he expects to win a diploma, he must apply himself 
diligently for at least two or three years. The first year is 
usually his free-and-easy period. In crossing the University 
threshold, the young abiturient has reached the most indepen- 
dent epoch of his life, and the happiest. He enjoys a brief 
season of relaxation from the severe tasks which have gone 
before, antecedent to the still sterner duties and anxieties which 
are sure to come after. Admired and indulged, he revels for 
a time in the wild ecstasy of his romantic, unchained thoughts. 



96 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Few would begrudge him this happy interval, and, least of all, 
those who can say, as many do, Ich war ja auch einmal 
Student ! 

I would reproach myself were I to dismiss this subject 
without mention of another germane to it, which many valued 
courtesies have fixed in my grateful recollection, — the Anglo- 
American Club of Heidelberg. Composed of English and 
American students attending the University, and worthily repre- 
senting the manhood of the two greatest nations of the world, 
that club is accustomed to celebrate with appropriate festivities 
the principal national anniversaries appropriate to its name 
and membership. The predominating spirit on such occasions 
is that of cordial good will, personal and international. The 
English members participate no less heartily than the Ameri- 
cans in celebrating Washington's Birthday and the Fourth of 
Julv, nor are the Americans at all cmido-ing; in returning these 
compliments on the birthday of the British sovereign. 

At one of these banquets which I had the honor to attend, 
the club entertained, as its principal guest, the late Professor 
Bluntschli, of the Heidelberg University, whose fame as a 
writer on international law is world-wide. Responding to a 
toast, this illustrious scholar and publicist pronounced a most 
fervid and graceful eulogy upon our great republic and its 
founders. One of the facts in our political history which had 
most deeply impressed him, he said, was the singular sim- 
plicity of life and character of our revolutionary statesmen. 
They wore no uniforms, paraded no titles, and made no osten- 
tatious pretensions. They had the dress and manner of plain, 
unaspiring citizens, said Bluntschli, and yet, in their quiet way, 
as if unconscious of the greatness of their achievements, they 
worked out with marvellous success the greatest problems and 
grandest results in human history. 

And the English members of the club applauded these 
sentiments no less heartily than the Americans ! 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 97 

CHAPTER VIII. 

SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 

Since Athens and Sparta contended for the supremacy of the 
world, no state of such territorial insignificance has performed 
such a phenomenal part in human affairs as Holland. In 
point of influence upon the progress of civilization — in 
achievements in commerce, agriculture, science, art, and litera- 
ture — few states have won a prouder name than this little 
patch of redeemed swamp and sand-barren wrested from the 
dominion of the sea. The planting of such a commonwealth, 
in defiance of such prodigious natural difficulties as were to 
be overcome, is itself one of the most unique and beneficent 
triumphs of the will, energy, and genius of man. The ex- 
ploits of the old Greek heroes may have been more poetic 
than this, but they were less useful, and in results far less 
enduring. 

The term " Dutchman" is sometimes applied in an oppro- 
brious sense, as significant of stupidity, but no people are 
more prudent and self-respecting, or have among them fewer 
mendicants, or a larger proportion of well-informed, enter- 
prising men and refined and beautiful women, than the Dutch 
of to-day. Their uniformly tidy and well-ordered homes 
contrast most suggestively with the squalor and profligacy 
seen in many other communities oh the European continent, 
while their robust appearance is eloquent of health and con- 
tentment, and their faces, as a rule, bear the stamp, not of 
stolidity, but of intelligence, stability, and personal indepen- 
dence. 

The general surface of Holland lies much below sea-level, 
and is also lower than the levels of its intersecting rivers. In- 
undation from the watercourses, as well as the encroachment 
e g 9 



98 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

of the sea, is prevented only by an elaborate system of en- 
ormous dikes, built at an aggregate cost of one billion five 
hundred million dollars. The largest of these dikes are about 
thirty feet in height, seventy feet broad at the base, and wide 
enough on top for a public thoroughfare. To give them firm- 
ness the underlying earth is stamped or compressed, and their 
escarpments, when completed, are covered with turf and thickly 
planted with willows. As soon as they are sufficiently grown 
the willows are plaited together and plastered with mud. Some 
of the dikes are protected against the violence of the waves by 
revetments of masonry or palisades of stakes. To keep these 
vast embankments in repair requires an annual expenditure of 
about three million dollars, and the constant vigilance and ac- 
tivity of a large corps of workmen. A perpetual struggle with 
the ocean is the price of existence in Holland, as any one may. 
realize who stands at the foot of one of the coastwise dikes at 
high tide and listens to the breaking of the waves on the 
other side, fifteen or twenty feet above him. 

The surface of the country is criss-crossed by canals, of 
countless number, which serve the threefold purpose of drains, 
highways for traffic, and enclosures for fields, gardens; and 
houses. The ordinary arterial canals are about sixty feet 
wide and six deep, but the great North Holland canal, con- 
necting Amsterdam with the Helder, is one hundred and 
twenty feet wide and twenty deep. Another immense work 
of this kind is that known as the North Sea canal, which 
extends from Amsterdam to the North Sea direct, and is 
practicable for the largest sea-going vessels. Its width is 
nearly two hundred feet, and its depth over twenty-two feet. 
This immense ditch, begun in 1865, and not fully completed 
until 1877, cost, together with its huge sea-gates and piers, 
the sum of seventeen millions of dollars. It was rendered 
necessary by the increasing shallowness of the Zuyder Zee, 
seriously threatening the commerce of Amsterdam. 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 99 

Next in magnitude to the work of barring out the sea has 
been that of draining the great ponds and marshes of which 
the territories of Holland were, for the most part, originally 
composed. The first step taken in this process is the excava- 
tion of a deep ditch around the land to be drained, so as to 
prevent the influx of water from the outside. The marsh or 
lake from which the water is to be removed may lie at a con- 
siderably lower level than this ditch, in which case a series of 
trenches is dug, one below another, sloping inward, and into 
these successively, from the lowest to the highest, the marsh 
water is pumped by windmills or by steam. The lands thus 
reclaimed are of great fertility and value, and can be readily 
irrigated from the circumjacent ditches. In winter they 
usually lie under water, by which treatment their power of 
production is supposed to be preserved and promoted. 

From 1840 to 1853 the Haarlemmer Meer, a fresh-water 
lake eighteen miles long, nine miles wide, and fourteen feet 
deep, was emptied in the manner just described, at a cost of 
five million two hundred thousand dollars. The water was 
lifted by three enormous steam-engines, each capable, with 
the pumps attached, of raising sixty-six tons of water at a 
single stroke. The lands once at the bottom of the lake are 
now worth three hundred and fifty dollars per acre, and 
support a population of ten thousand souls. The polder land 
of the great Beemster marsh, reclaimed in 1608-12, is now 
valued at five hundred dollars per acre. A scheme is dis- 
cussed for draining the entire Zuyder Zee, — once an inland 
lake, — and, if executed, will add to the land surface of Hol- 
land a new province, six hundred and eighty-seven square 
miles in extent, and create another great reservoir of agricul- 
tural wealth. 

The public enemy, water, is kept in subjection by the aid 
of its twin element, wind. The motive power by which the 
drainage is performed is chiefly furnished by windmills, which 



100 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

strew the country in battalions and armies, imparting to the 
scenery its most striking feature. Sometimes they are ranked 
upon the dikes, and sometimes they stand on the ramparts of 
towns, which they seem to be defending by the energetic sway 
of their gigantic vanes. Many of these mills are of monstrous 
size, having single sails over sixty feet in length. Their 
numbers are also enormous. Along the banks of the Zaan, 
between Zaandam and Krommenie, a distance of four miles, 
there are about' four hundred. Besides driving the pumps 
which lift the marsh water into the canals, the windmills 
furnish power for milling, and for a great variety of agricul- 
tural and manufacturing purposes. Along the Zaan many of 
them are employed in grinding a volcanic substance called 
"trass," found at Andernach-on-the-Rhine, which is used in 
the manufacture of cement. 

Along the coast, sand-hills are thrown up by the action of 
the wind and waves to the height of from thirty to one hun- 
dred and sixty feet. Nearest the sea these hills are arid and 
transitory, but farther inland they are annually sown with 
reed grass and other hardy plants, by the growth and decay 
of which the sandy surface is eventually covered with vege- 
table mould, and changed from a condition of barrenness to 
one of extreme fertility. Between the central downs, which 
are highest and broadest, and those still farther remote from 
the sea-coast, lie some of the finest potato lands and pastures. 
The sand-hills, being honeycombed with rabbit-warrens, and a 
favorite haunt for some kinds of feathered game, furnish an 
attractive field to the sportsman. 

The dwellings of the Dutch peasantry and villagers are 
usually built with large double windows in the first story, and 
high, peaked gables fronting the street. The majority of them 
have walls of red brick and white cement, and are roofed with 
bright red tiles. Many are painted green and, with their red 
tilings, polished windows, and environing trees, make a very 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 101 

attractive appearance. A farm-house on the lowlands is visible 
for miles, with its huge, red-tiled, pyramidal roof rising from 
the meadows and descending nearly to the ground. The 
country dwellings of the wealthy are often gaudily stuccoed 
and painted, and are usually lettered above the portal with 
some sententious phrase expressive of peace, contentment, or 
hospitality. Every dwelling of any pretensions is fronted 
with an ample garden, wherein flowers are cultivated of every 
hue and kind, and where the favorite tulip, hyacinth, and 
crocus flourish in riotous splendor. 

It is not strange that so many of the Dutch artists have 
loved to paint the interiors of these homes, for they are the very 
ideals of substantial and orderly domestic comfort. The rage 
of Dutch housewives for cleanliness amounts almost to a 
mania, and their dwellings are thoroughly scrubbed and pol- 
ished, both internally and externally, once a week. Filth and 
vermin are held in unspeakable aversion. The town of Broek, 
situated in the so-called " Waterland," one of the lowest dis- 
tricts in Holland, has been made the subject of ridicule on 
account of its restrictions upon equestrians and smokers, its 
mosaically-paved streets and courts, its gaudily-painted houses 
with brilliant roofs of variegated tiles, its requirement that 
pedestrians shall leave their shoes at the door, and, above all, 
its immaculate cow-stables, in which the tails of the cows are 
hooked aloft. The best parlor of a Broek dwelling is thrown 
open only for weddings and funerals. Entrance to the house 
is gained through the cow-stable, which is kept superlatively 
clean, and serves as a reception-room. Broek has been called 
the cleanest town in the world, but it is no more tidy than 
Zaandam and other North Holland villages. 

A birth in a Dutch family is announced by the display of 
a silken placard, and births and betrothals are both celebrated 
by setting out refreshments to congratulating friends and 
neighbors. One of the indispensables of female comfort is the 

9* 



102 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

stoqfje, a clumsy sort of foot-warmer, which is as pervasive as 
the sex. Chimes of tinkling bells, hung in the towers of 
nearly all churches and public buildings, announce the passing 
hours and quarters with gentle and pleasing melody. 

Both in town and country many buildings of every kind 
are tilted out of their perpendicular by reason of the insta- 
bility of their foundations, laid in the deep, soft alluvium. In 
consequence of this, long lines of tall, ungainly buildings have 
assumed attitudes strikingly suggestive of the uncertain equi- 
poise and mock solemnity of a lot of tipsy revellers. 

The peculiar costumes of the Dutch women, of which so 
much has been written', have mostly disappeared from the 
larger towns and cities, but in the rural districts are still in 
vogue, especially in North Holland and Friesland. The 
oddest part of this costume is the head-dress, the style of 
which distinguishes the women of different provinces, and is 
often costly as well as fantastic. In its most usual form its 
chief part is a broad band of gold, or gilded metal, crossing 
the forehead in horseshoe form, so as to hold back the hair, 
and bearing large rosettes of the same metal at the sides. 
Above this band a veil or cap of rich lace is worn, with ap- 
pendages of the same metal dropping to the neck. The ears 
are adorned with showy pendants of gold and gems. The 
most grotesque form of this head-gear is that adopted by the 
Texel Island women, consisting of a gold plate, with fripperies 
of black lace, horns of black ribbon at the outer extremities 
of the eyebrows, and, upon the back of the head, " a brown 
edifice exactly like a small bronze coal-scuttle turned upside 
down." Still another fancy is that of a skull-cap of gold or 
silver, covering the upper and back part of the head, a gold 
band across the temples, and glittering spiral ornaments sus- 
pended from long pins projecting from the sides of the head. 

The Frisian women, whose complexion is singularly fair, 
and whose features are very lively and handsome, wear a close- 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 103 

fitting metal cap divided in the middle, and garnished at the 
sides with small disks elaborately chased. The skull-cap is 
very often made of gold, and never of anything less precious 
than silver. It has the effect of enhancing the beauty of the 
complexion,- and with its lofty and elaborate crown of lace 
imparts dignity to the wearer. Leeuwarden, the ancient capital 
of the Frisians, is famous for its gold and silver work, and 
is said to contain no less than twenty-five establishments which 
either manufacture or trade in these peculiar coverings for the 
head. 

It is sometimes said that a Dutch peasant girl carries her 
entire dowry upon her head and ears, the fact in many cases 
being that the costly toggery referred to has come to its pos- 
sessor as an heirloom from her mother, to whom, in turn, it 
had been handed down from successive generations. Exhibi- 
tions of such ornaments are frequently made by jewellers, 
showing the difference between ancient workmanship and 
modern, which latter seldom profits by the comparison. 

The cultivation of flowers is a popular passion, and at the 
same time a profitable industry. The country about Haarlem 
furnishes the finest gardens in Europe with roots and bulbs, 
and is brilliant, in the flowering season, with the myriad hues 
of blooming plants, grown by the acre. As long ago as the 
first half of the seventeenth century, floriculture became al- 
most a craze in some of the Dutch provinces, and large for- 
tunes were made by speculation in bulbs. Holland possesses 
some of the finest botanical gardens and horticultural schools 
in Europe, and claims to have done more to promote horti- 
culture than any other country in the world. 

There is scarcely any leading department of industry, com- 
merce, art, or science in which the modern Batavians have not 
achieved a marked success, and contributed materially to the 
welfare of mankind, — scarcely any great historical movement 
in behalf of general progress and the spread of civilization in 



104 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

which they have not borne a prominent part. Their naviga- 
tors were among the earliest and boldest, and have been among 
the most successful in enlarging the sphere of commercial 
enterprise and geographical knowledge. Under the protection 
of their naval power, which, at the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century, was the most formidable on the seas, their com- 
merce became the most widely extended in the world, and, in 
spite of all rivalries, yet continues to be world-wide. In the 
success and profit of colonial enterprise they have distanced 
every other country except Great Britain, their present colonial 
dependencies embracing territories inhabited by twenty-five 
millions of people. By no means least among these enterprises 
was the part they performed in the settlement of the American 
colonies. Their feats of arms on land and sea have sustained 
the reputation for valor of the original Batavians, the inflexi- 
ble allies of Rome, who furnished the body-guard of the 
Roman emperors, and were declared by Tacitus to be the 
bravest of all the Germans. The extent of their contributions 
to scientific progress is indicated by Niebuhr's remark that no 
locality in Europe is so memorable in the history of science as 
the Hall of the Senatus in the University of Leyden. In 
many branches of productive industry they have not only 
acquired great wealth, but have almost distanced competition. 
To literature and statesmanship they have contributed a whole 
galaxy of illustrious names, and, strangest of all, in nothing 
have these steady-going, toiling, trading dwellers among the 
dunes distinguished themselves more than in art. 

While these things have been accomplished in the past, 
things worthy of them are being done in the present. In 
education and thoroughness of information the Dutch are quite 
abreast with the foremost of their contemporaries, and their 
societies for the promotion of art, science, music, literature, and 
philanthropy, and for the discussion of all manner of useful 
subjects, have no end. These societies have invaluable auxil- 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 105 

iaries in great public libraries, and museums of art, science, 
and history, enriched "with the accumulations of centuries 
drawn from all parts of the world. A society for promotion 
of the public welfare, having its head-quarters in Amsterdam, 
and extending its operations throughout the kingdom, aims to 
establish schools, libraries, lecture bureaus, and reading-rooms, 
and to encourage various works of charity and mercy. This 
society now has three hundred and thirty departments, and 
numbers seventeen thousand members. 

Historically, commercially, socially, and in almost every 
other respect, Holland is epitomized in its chief metropolis. 
Amsterdam is in various respects a phenomenal city. Said to 
be, for its population, the wealthiest in the world, there are 
certainly few other cities more interesting. Yet, but for the 
great dikes which hold back the waters of the sea, the ground 
upon which this richly-stored working hive of three hundred 
thousand people stands would be submerged to the depth of 
several feet. The whole city has been built upon wooden 
piles driven as deeply as possible into the yielding mould, yet 
even this costly expedient has not prevented hundreds of 
buildings from being thrown out of their proper level. The 
piles have been attacked by wood worms, and have often 
yielded to the superincumbent weight. A large grain ware- 
house, built . some years ago, immediately upon being filled, 
literally sank down into the mud. 

The city is built in the form of a half-moon, with its recti- 
lineal side fronting on the muddy estuary of the Zuyder Zee 
known as the Ij. It is crossed by six principal canals, which 
a multitude of smaller ones connect transversely, like the 
threads of a spider's web. The principal thoroughfares are 
water-ways, as in Venice, but the city is in no other respect 
Venetian. Venice, like Amsterdam, was once the commercial 
mistress of the world ; but Amsterdam has retained her com- 
mercial prosperity, while that of Venice has departed. In 



106 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

architecture, and in the quality of their art, the two cities are 
as wide apart as the poles. 

For six centuries the herring fisheries of Holland have been 
known as " Dutch gold mines," and among the Dutch them- 
selves it has long been a proverb that " the foundations of 
Amsterdam are laid on herring bones." So much did this trade 
formerly contribute to the general prosperity that the arrival 
of fresh boat-loads of herrings became a matter of popular 
rejoicing, and was celebrated by the display of flags and flowers. 

The sombre appearance given to the streets by the monoto- 
nous black lines of tall, peaked buildings is much relieved by 
long rows of trees which grow luxuriantly on the banks of the 
canals. The multitudes of little islands, into which the land 
surface of the city is partitioned by its water-ways, are connected 
with one another by drawbridges. Being the central point in 
the national system of fortification, Amsterdam is covered on 
the land side by a ditch eighty feet wide, and a brick parapet 
with thirty bastions. In case of military necessity, the entire 
suburban territory lying outside of these lines may be laid 
under water. 

The best general view of Amsterdam and its environs is ob- 
tained from the tower of the old City Hall, now known as the 
Royal Palace. From this elevation the eye takes in at a glance 
the entire web of streets, canals, and lines of peaked houses with 
their forked chimneys. Fronting all is the Ij, with its great 
docks and forests of masts extending to the broad bay of the 
Zuyder Zee, the plane of whose waters is higher by several 
feet than that of the streets below. Outside the fortifications 
the city is encircled by a garden patchwork of green, gold, red, 
and scarlet, beyond which lies an indefinite extent of verdant 
meadow and polderland, crossed by the silvery threads of 
numberless canals, and diversified with farm-houses and villages, 
countless windmills, and grazing herds of dappled cattle. 
Eastward are descried the spires of Utrecht ; westward, beyond 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 107 

the great Haarlemmer polder, rises the huge tower of St. 
Bavon, in Haarlem ; northward are seen the glittering red 
roofs of Alkmaar and Zaandam ; and beyond these, skirting 
the horizon, stretches the line of dome-shaped dunes thrown 
up by the winds and waves of the North Sea. 

The art of Holland centres chiefly at Amsterdam, but, like 
her commerce, its range and influence are world-wide. There 
is no important picture gallery in Europe of which it is not 
an essential and conspicuous part. Rembrandt's marvels of 
chiaroscuro ; Ruisdael's deep forest scenes and riotous Nor- 
wegian cascades; Adrian van der Velde's Claude-like land- 
scapes, with their astonishing perspectives; the serene and 
poetic pastoral scenes of Hobbema, Both, Wynants, Berchem, 
Cuyp, Van Goyen, and Everdingen ; the wonderful cattle- 
pieces of Paul Potter; the exquisite battle- and hunting-scenes 
of Wouverman ; the bold animal painting of Rubens's apt 
scholar, Snyders ; the superb marines of Backhuysen, Koek- 
koek, and Van der Velde the younger ; the unsurpassed 
poultry and still life of Hondecoeter and Weenix ; the ex- 
quisite flower-pieces of the " first of female painters," Rachael 
Ruysch ; and the realistic genre of Jan Steen, Brauwer, Metsu, 
Mieris, Dou, Breughel, Van Ostade, and Frans Hals, — all 
these are known as well, and honored as highly, in London, 
Paris, Dresden, Munich, Vienna, Madrid, and Rome as they 
are in Amsterdam or the Hague. Even hyperborean St. 
Petersburg has whole rooms full of Rembrandts, Wouvermans, 
and Cuyps, and Paul Potter is greater there than in England, 
or, if possible, even than in Holland. The Dresden gallery 
has a large collection of the finest Van der Werffs, and a score 
of Rembrandts, including the magnificent Ganymede. Before 
relinquishing the Low Countries, the Spaniards took good care 
to enrich their capital with the treasures of Dutch art, of 
which the galleries of Florence and Rome have also managed 
to obtain a liberal share. 



108 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

In its physical aspects no country would seem to offer less 
incitement to thoughts or creations of the poetic and ideal 
than the flat, sandy marshes of the Rhine delta. Yet, how 
many of the common things of that commonplace region — 
that ignominious death-bed of a noble river — have the wizards 
of Dutch art transformed by their alchemies of color into 
things of perpetual living beauty ! Seeing not, yet believing, 
with what potential fancy they have evoked from their dull 
polders the ideal truth of nature, and painted it fair as an 
Arcadian dream ! An artist, said Delaroche, must compel 
nature to pass through his intellect and his heart, and this the 
Dutch artists have done. " A dead tree, by Ruisdael, may 
touch the heart ; a cow, by Paul Potter, may speak eloquently ; 
a kitchen, by Ivalf, may contain a poem." Cuyp, the Dutch 
Claude, painted interiors so captivating that his native country 
could not retain them ; Van der Neer reproduced nature with 
simple truth, and yet with such ideal beauty that he was 
called " the poet of the night ;" while Rembrandt, the " great- 
est painter of the north," changed reality into a " supernatural 
vision." 

The rise of art in the Netherlands began with the achievement 
of their national independence. The same revolution which 
created a political Holland, says Qui net, created also Dutch 
art. But while the art of Holland derived its opportunity 
from her changed political life, its individuality sprang from 
an entirely different source. That source, was the master mind 
of Rembrandt van Ryn. Born in the beginning of the seven- 
teenth century, — the century in which his country accom- 
plished nearly all that has made her illustrious in art, — this 
marvellous genius, like Claude Lorraine, was of lowly origin, 
self-taught, and within the self-created sphere of his activity 
without a rival. Tradition affirms that he was born and had 
his first studio in his father's mill ; that his name derives its 
suffix, Van Ryn, from this fact ; and that, from the effect of 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. 109 

the single beam of light which streamed into the gloomy in- 
terior of the mill through its ventilator at the top, he obtained 
his first hints in the use of light and shadow. 

Amsterdam and the Hague are the best places to study 
Rembrandt. In Amsterdam, where he spent most of his life, 
we find his crowning masterpiece, the Night Watch, in which 
the magic possibilities of light and its contrasts are revealed 
as no other canvas ever revealed them. The subject of this 
picture is extremely simple, — almost commonplace, — but with 
such dramatic power of color and chiaroscuro is its action dis- 
played as to produce one of the sublimest creations in art. A 
band of civilian musketeers is seen issuing from its guild- 
house, led — as we learn from a list of names at the bottom of 
the picture — by the Seignior of Purmerland, Captain Frans 
Banning Cock. The moving musketeers are examining their 
weapons preparatory to action, their drummer is beating a 
call, and their ensign unfolds a standard displaying the es- 
cutcheon of the city. Two blond-haired maidens, the fore- 
most richly dressed and carrying in her hand a pistol, run 
after the leaders, but the figures are all self-possessed, and we 
observe no overwrought action or straining for effect. The 
foremost members of the party have reached the exit of the 
building, and so strong is the light which falls upon them 
through the ceiling windows that the shadow of the captain's 
hand is thrown darkly upon the jerkin of his lieutenant. 
Behind this effulgence is a twilight interior, wherein the re- 
maining figures are sharply individualized, even in the shadow. 
These are simple details, but as portrayed by Rembrandt they 
have more beauty and strength of expression than the wildest 
battle-scene which Salvator Rosa ever drew. 

In an adjoining room hangs another famous Rembrandt 
known as The Syndics, which contains little else than the por- 
traits of five directors of the clothmakers' guild and a servant. 
The directors, dressed in black, wear high broad-brimmed hats 

10 



HO EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

and broad linen collars, and are seated at a red-covered table, 
except one, who stands in a listening attitude. The figures 
all look towards the spectator, and so intense and vivid is their 
realism that the effect is almost startling. There, is but little 
color in the picture, and no very strong light, but its chiaros- 
curo is managed with such consummate art that those sedate, 
undemonstrative figures produce a stronger impression than 
the most violent action. 

Van der Heist's Banquet of the Civic Guard hangs in the 
same room with the Night Watch, with which it has been said 
to compare like the Meyer Madonna with the Madonna di San 
Sisto. The strength, dignity, and calmness of Dutch character 
are admirably portrayed in this masterpiece of Van der Heist's, 
but its effect might have been improved if the artist had con- 
tracted his focus, and limited his action to fewer figures. 
Rembrandt, it is plainly noticeable, is careful not to disperse 
his light over so large a surface or among so many objects. 

A striking example of the effect of concentration is seen in 
Hondecoeter's picture in this collection known as The Float- 
ing Feather. Beside a pond, which is surrounded by rich vege- 
tation, are grouped various fowls, including several kinds of 
geese and ducks, a crane, a pelican, and a flamingo,— all superb 
in drawing and color. But the central object of the picture — 
the one which instantly fixes the attention — is a curled feather 
which swims on the smooth surface of the water, so buoyant, 
so salient, so natural, that we expect to see it move before some 
passing breeze. The fabled grapes of Zeuxis could hardly 
have been more perfect. 

Amsterdam possesses three public galleries of painting, the 
Hague two, and Rotterdam one. The Rotterdam gallery con- 
tains few works of conspicuous merit, and may be passed by 
without regret, but the Hague vies with Amsterdam in the 
extent and merit of its accumulation of Dutch masterpieces. 
The bright particular gem of the Hague collection is Rem- 



SOME GLIMPSES OF HOLLAND. HI 

brandt's School of Anatomy, which a French critic has char- 
acterized as one of the few creations of men which are fault- 
less and perfectly beautiful. We might further say of it that 
it is one of the few pictures in which we seem to see men 
think, — which betrays the very process of their thoughts. It is 
thus described in Burger's " M usees de la Hollande" : 

" This picture represents the celebrated anatomist, Nicolaus 
Tulp, a friend and patron of Rembrandt, in a vaulted saloon, 
engaged in explaining the anatomy of the arm of a corpse. 
He wears a black cloak with a lace collar, and a broad- 
brimmed soft hat. "With his half-raised left hand he makes a 
gesture of explanation, while with his right he is dissecting a 
sinew of the arm of his subject. The corpse lies on a table 
before him. To the right of Tulp is a group of five figures, 
and two other men are sitting at the table in front. These 
listeners are not students, but members of the guild of surgeons 
of Amsterdam [the picture was painted for that guild], as 
shown by a paper held by one of them. They are attending 
to the lecture with very various expressions. They are all 
bareheaded, dressed in black, and with turned-over collars, ex- 
cept one, who still wears the old-fashioned upright ruff. 
There are, perhaps, other persons present in the hall, as Tulp 
appears to be looking beyond the picture, as if about to address 
an audience not visible to the spectator y and it is here worthy 
of remark that Rembrandt's compositions are never imprisoned 
in their frames, but convey an idea of a wide space beyond 
them. It is somewhat singular that the spectator seems hardly 
to notice the corpse lying before him at full length, the feet of 
which he can almost touch, although it is strongly lighted in 
contrast to the surrounding black garments, and most faithfully 
represents the peculiar hue of a dead body, leaving no doubt 
that it was painted from nature as well as the living heads. 
The admirable art of the composition consists in its power of 
riveting the attention to the living in the presence of death." 



1]2 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Two other Rembrandts in this collection— the Presentation in 
the Temple and Susanna Entering the Bath — have also acquired 
celebrity, although they are quite eclipsed in the presence of 
the Anatomy. These pictures are small in comparison with 
their celebrated companion piece, but the breadth of Rem- 
brandt's canvas is never great, and, as compared with that 
of Rubens, is very moderate. The so-called Pearls of Rem- 
brandt, at Munich, are quite small, and the Rembrandts in the 
Florence, Vienna, Dresden, and Louvre galleries are none of 
them of more than ordinary dimensions. The Night Watch, 
which is largest of all, is of much less size than many of 
Rubens's pictures. 

The madonnas, saints, and martyrs which crowd the Italian 
museums of painting, are conspicuous in those of Holland by 
their absence. Per contra, a crowd of Dutch painters have 
rushed to another — in some respects an opposite — extreme in 
their passion for genre art. Jan Steen, the ablest of these, is 
liberally represented in the Amsterdam and Hague collections ; 
as are also Frans Hals, Metsu, Mieris, Dou, Brauwer, Van 
Ostade, and many others of that class. But while much genius 
has been exhibited in this kind of art, it fails to satisfy the 
higher love of the beautiful, and we turn from it with a sense 
of relief to the Rembrandts, Van der Werffs, and Wouver- 
mans, and to such landscape gems as those of Ruisdael, Wy- 
nants, and Adrian Van der Velde. 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 113 

CHAPTER IX. 

FROM SNOW TO SUN. 

" Were you ever in Italy ?" 

" Never." 

" Then I would advise you to go there now, for at this season 
you can visit Rome without danger of the fever, of which I 
would by no means take any risks." 

Such was the advice given me by a friend one wintry day 
in Vienna. Snow had been falling all the night before, and 
lay six inches deep on the ground. I had intended going 
northward from Vienna to Prague and Berlin, but the state 
of the weather and my friend's counsel persuaded me to re- 
verse my plan and turn southward. Accordingly I embarked 
next morning upon the early express train bound over the 
Semmering to Trieste. The skies were clear, and the spotless 
ermine with which the earth had been freshly robed sparkled 
in the sun's rays. Emerging from the suburbs of the Austrian 
metropolis, we entered an undulating plain sprinkled with 
villages, and in half an hour reached Baden, famous for the 
beauty of its environs, its castle-crowned heights, and its 
thermal springs, of ancient as well as modern repute. Half an 
hour more brought us to the old town of Neustadt, which is 
the birth- and burial-place of the great Maximilian, and 
possesses still the ancient ducal castle of the Babenbergs, — the 
earlier rulers of Austria. On the right, beyond Neustadt, the 
solitary cone of the Schneeberg, white, smooth, and radiant, 
comes into view from summit to base, while on the left the 
deepening outlines of the Leitha Mountains admonish us of our 
approach to the Styrian Alps. Henceforth the plains rapidly 
give place to lofty pine-clad hills, and at the end of two hours 
from Vienna, we reach Gloggnitz, at the foot of the Semmering. 
h 10* 



114 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

The ancient trail to which this name has been given sug- 
gested as a practicable route the present course of the railway 
over the Noric chain of Alps, forming the boundary between 
Lower Austria and Styria. Beginning its ascent at Gloggnitz, 
the line is carried in a serpentine course along the face of the 
range, and up its precipitous slopes, affording a series of 
magnificent views, as one promontory after another is turned, 
and height after height is reached. Gloggnitz, far below, 
shrinks to the proportions of a pygmy village, and the green 
current of the Schwarzau, meandering in the deep and distant 
valley, seems but a curling ribbon. The three peaks of the 
Sonnenwendstein, rising on the left, and the huge buttress of 
the Raxalp in the right background, disappear as we swing by 
a long circuit around the north slope of the mountain, cross 
the valley of the Reichenau by a lofty viaduct of nine arches, 
and perceive on a distant rocky pinnacle the ruined Lichten- 
stein castle, once the key of Styria. The scenery now begins 
to assume the aspect of isolation and loneliness peculiar to the 
Upper Alps, and we pass through long galleries, built to pro- 
tect the railway from avalanches precipitated from the over- 
hanging cliffs rising thousands of feet above it. The loftiest 
station is Semmering, two thousand eight hundred and eighty 
feet above sea-level, where a monument in honor of Carl von 
Ghega, the builder of the railway, has been erected. 

Directly after quitting Semmering the line' pierces the top- 
most section of the range by a mile-long tunnel, — at the centre 
of which the highest point is reached, — then descends rapidly 
along the northern declivity of the Froschnitz gorge to the 
clumsily-named but attractively-situated village of Miirz- 
zuschlag, beside which foams the torrent of the Miirz. In 
carrying the line over the range from Gloggnitz to this point, 
twenty-five miles, enormous difficulties have had to be over- 
come, requiring the construction of fifteen tunnels and as 
many lofty bridges, besides immense snow-galleries and via- 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 115 

ducts. The engineering triumphs of the Semmering, though 
surpassed in extent and grandeur by those of the Arlberg and 
St. Gothard, have the distinction of having been first in 
the subjugation of great mountain barriers, and of having 
pointed the way to similar achievements more difficult and 
costly, though not more important. 

We have now entered Styria,— the Steiermark of the Ger- 
mans — the Pannonia-Noricum of the Romans, — -a rock-bound, 
heavily-forested country, belted by fertile valleys, and in- 
habited by a population part German and part Slav. From 
the Semmering the railway descends the pine-clad defile of the 
Miirz, passing numerous iron forges, and rounding cragged 
heights crowned with ruined castles. At Bruck, an attractive 
mountain town, which possesses an old castle with Romanesque 
arcades, the line turns into the narrow valley of the Mur, en- 
closed between steep timber-covered slopes, upon the rocky 
buttresses of which stand numerous castles, some in ruins and 
some inhabited. Lead and copper are mined in this valley, 
which contracts, in some portions, into a deep gorge' within 
which the river and railway crowd each other, the latter some- 
times taking refuge in galleries cut in the walls of natural 
rock. Emerging from these confines we come into a broad 
open valley, which continues until we reach Gratz, the Styrian 
capital. 

This most enjoyable old city of ninety thousand people 
clusters around the Schlossberg, an isolated height bearing 
still the remnants of a fortification erected four centuries ago 
to repel the Turks, and commanding a far-reaching, capti- 
vating view over the broad, mountain-girdled basin of the 
Mur. Gratz has many attractions, and is the favorite resi- 
dence of retired officers of the Austrian army. Healthy, 
inexpensive, charming in its situation and environs, it pos- 
sesses many new and elegant streets and a very fine park and 
boulevard occupying the grounds cleared of its mediaeval fortifi- 



116 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

cations. Architecturally it makes boast of its cathedral, a 
splendid Gothic structure built in 1456, and of its new uni- 
versity building, which is one of the finest in Austria. The 
Johanneum, a technical college founded by the Archduke 
John for the promotion of science, art, and agriculture, has 
extensive buildings and gardens. The University, founded 
in 1586, comprises among its institutions an archaeological 
museum and an extensive library. The city possesses a 
museum of art and one of natural history, a rare collection of 
coins and antiquities, a botanical garden, and a library of 
about eighty thousand volumes, all accessible to the public. 
Of pleasant drives in the environs of Gratz, and interesting 
excursions to the neighboring Alps, there is no end. 

The next important town as we go south is Marburg, 
washed by the river Drave, and environed by vine-clad hills. 
Beyond Marburg the railway crosses a broad undulating plain 
and penetrates the mountainous country of the Winds, a 
Slavic race so called to distinguish them from the North Ger- 
man Slavs known as Wends. This district abounds in 
mineral springs, some of which are surrounded by superb 
mountain scenery, and have a reputation which reaches back 
to antiquity. The territories now inhabited by the Winds, 
having been among the few east of the Adriatic which were 
thoroughly Romanized, still bear many traces of the Roman 
dominion. The old town of Cilli, which is the next important 
railway station beyond Marburg, was founded by the Emperor 
Claudius ; tradition locates a Roman temple on a conical 
mountain near the Baths of Rohitsch, east of Cilli ; while at 
Teplitza, some miles farther south, inscriptions have been 
found which prove that the thermal springs there were visited 
in ancient Roman times, as they are now, by pleasure-seekers 
and invalids. 

After quitting Cilli the railway meanders along the rocky 
ravine of the San, on either side of which rise precipitous 



FROM SNOW TO SUK 117 

limestone cliffs containing vast deposits of coal seventy to 
eighty feet in thickness. After passing Sagor and Sava, the 
first stations in Carniola, we emerge from these shadowy con- 
fines into a broad valley, from which the lofty range of the 
Julian Alps can be seen towards the north-west. An hour 
later the train arrives at Laibach, the capital of Carniola, 
anciently a Roman province, but now an Austrian duchy, with 
a Slavic population, and a world-wide fame for lofty, snow- 
capped mountains, subterranean rivers, wonderful caverns, and 
mines of quicksilver which, next to those of Almaden, in Spain, 
are the richest in Europe. Chief among these quicksilver 
mines is that of Idria, twenty-one miles from the railway, 
where the ore is brought up from a depth of two thousand six 
hundred feet. The annual yield of the Idria mines is about 
three hundred tons of pure metal. 

Five miles south-east of the railway from Rakek, a station 
beyond Laibach, lies the Lacus Lugens of Strabo, a body of 
water six miles long and two broad, which is surrounded by 
mountains of great height, and drained by funnel-shaped 
apertures in the rocks. This lake abounds in fish, and is 
visited by water-fowl in great numbers. Its waters, after find- 
ing vent in the fissures of the underlying strata, reappear in 
the Laibach Valley below, forming two brooks known as the 
Bistriza and Boruniza. 

Another curious phenomenon of this kind is seen in the 
celebrated stalactite caverns at Adelsberg, which is the next 
important station, and lies about midway between Laibach and 
Trieste. Through one of these caverns flows the river Poik, 
which, after disappearing in this subterranean passage, emerges 
from the mountains some miles distant as a river of another 
name, under which alias it makes but a brief daylight career 
before it again disappears and is finally lost. 

The Adelsberg caverns are under the supervision of a com- 
mittee, which issues tickets to visitors. Entrance is made at 



118 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

an altitude of two thousand three hundred feet above tide- 
water, and sixty feet above the point where the waters of the 
Poik find admission. The first of the large grottos has a 
height of seventy-one feet, and has been named the " Cathedral" 
from the likeness of its incrusted walls and roof, and its ranges 
of crystal columns, to Gothic forms. Far down in its nether 
recesses the torrent of the Poik is heard plunging and hissing 
amidst mysterious chasms, as if wrestling with subterranean 
dragons. Another grotto, bearing the name of Kaiser Ferdi- 
nand, comprises a series of halls, one of which, over one 
hundred feet in height and nearly four hundred feet long, is 
popularly called the ball-room. In this immense chamber, 
brilliantly illuminated for the purpose, a grand annual dance 
is held, on Whitmonday, by festive young peasants, of many 
costumes and languages, from all the country round. 

The next gallery, largest of all, is six hundred and sixty- 
nine feet in length, and has a height of one hundred and eleven 
feet. The remotest point to which the explorations have yet 
penetrated is one mile and a quarter from the entrance. 

The stalactites and stalagmites in these caverns are among 
the finest yet discovered, and have assumed a multitude of 
fantastic forms, resembling pillars, trees, fountains, water-falls, 
draperies, beasts, birds, and human beings. Although it re- 
quires at least a decade for the water-drip which causes these 
formations to produce a palpable deposit, some of the columnar 
forms have attained a diameter of twelve feet. A very rare 
little animal, of pale red color, resembling a salamander, is 
found in the waters of these caverns. 

The railroad follows the valley of the Poik from Adelsberg 
to St. Peter, where it enters a treeless, rock-strewn plain, 
seamed and spotted with clefts and holes, blotched with 
patches of beggarly brushwood, and swept by violent winds. 
The river Timavo — the Timavus of the Romans — courses 
underground for twenty-three miles through this dismal 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 119 

district, and, having avoided its dreary scenes, emerges from 
the rocks and falls into 'the Adriatic. The railway, mean- 
dering among the ravines and pitfalls of this region, finally 
escapes from it by darting through several tunnels. It then 
courses briefly amidst the olive-bearing hills of the Littorale, 
and descends by sweeping curves, overlooking the blue Adri- 
atic, to Trieste. 

At Vienna I had been led to hope that upon reaching the 
Adriatic I would have left winter behind me, but such did 
not prove to be the case. We approached Trieste amidst a 
violent snow-storm, and the entire coast had a wintry aspect. 

" But when you get over to Venice you will find bright 
skies and a vernal atmosphere," I was told. 

Accordingly, I hastened to get over to Venice. A comfort- 
able steamer leaves Trieste late in the evening and arrives at 
Venice the following morning. To bid farewell to winter 
with the going down of the sun and say good-morning to 
summer at the very next dawn of day was a programme so 
fascinating as to make all time seem wasted which postponed 
its fulfilment. Making a single day suffice for Trieste, I slept 
the following night on the Adriatic, taking good care that I 
should not miss the famous sunrise views of Venice approached 
from the sea. Alas for the famous views ! I was on deck 
betimes, and, while shuddering in the cold wind which swept 
the lagoon, saw, under cheerless wintry skies, the nearing 
city's roofs and domes, — 

Saw from out the wave her structures rise 

As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand, — 

but there was no enchantment in the chilling fact that those 
structures were all covered with snow ! Agreeably to tradi- 
tion, the city indeed seemed to be afloat, — to have drifted into 
an Arctic sea. 

" This is very extraordinary weather for Venice," an Eng- 



120 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

lish lady assured me at the Hotel Victoria. "I am for the 
fourteenth time making my sojourn here for the winter, but I 
have never before seen anything like this." 

There was comfort in these words, — -just about as much as 
I got from the bundles of burning twigs which made mockery 
of heat in the little fireplace of my big apartment. 

But the worst had not yet come. After some delusive 
gleams of sunshine, the cloud argosies which floated above 
" the dogeless city" jettisoned upon it their cargoes of con- 
gealed vapor, which descended in massive, thickly-flying flakes, 
darkening the air. For the time being the cheer and poetry 
of Venice were gone ; the voices of its gondoliers resounded 
cavernously between dismal walls, and the " fairy city of the 
heart" became a city of snow-shovellers chiefly. After this 
state of things had lasted for some days, clearing weather re- 
turned, and in a qualified sense Venice became herself again, 
but the Istrian Alps and the plains between them and the 
lagoon, as seen from the Campanile tower, looked about as 
hyperborean as a December scene in Kamtchatka. 

" One sun, one Venice, one Piazzo San Marco" is the tra- 
ditional boast of the Venetians, and they keep it up even 
when the sun refuses to countenance such flatteries, and so 
obscures himself with cloud as to make it seem doubtful 
whether there is even one sun, to say nothing of many suns. 
Yet the boast deserves respect. There is indeed but one 
Venice, just as there is but one Shakespeare's "Othello," or 
one Homer's " Iliad." Phenomenal alike in her situation, 
history, art, and architecture, and in her political, industrial, 
and commercial achievements, is this sceptreless, yet ever 
adorable, sea-queen. Nature and Art have conspired to beautify 
her; Genius pays homage, as a proud privilege, to her unique 
fascination ; illustrious names crowd the category of her eulo- 
gists. All who behold her rave, all who write about her 
rhapsodize, — it seems to be expected of them. There are 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 121 

blemishes, faults, and dark sides, but no one cares to dwell 
on them while there is so much that interests and captivates, — 
so much to enjoy and admire. I did not find in the basilica 
of St. Mark's, or the Doges' Palace, the ideal which Ruskin's 
eccentric pen had prefigured in my mind ; my wintry, matter- 
of-fact views were sadly out of tune with Canaletto's pictures, 
De Musset's poetry, and Taine's florid descriptions ; yet I was 
not disappointed. Had the truth and the poetry been much 
farther apart than they were, I could still — who could not? — 
have shared the glowing enthusiasm of Taine in contemplating 
this Venice, which, beginning as " a borough of fishmongers 
planted on mud, without earth, water, stone, or wood, con- 
quered the coasts of its own gulf, Constantinople, the Archi- 
pelago, the Peloponnesus and Cyprus ; which suppressed seven 
rebellions in Zara and sixteen in Crete; which defeated the 
Dalmatians, the Byzantines, the sultans of Cairo, and the 
kings of Hungary; which launched on the Bosphorus flotillas 
of five hundred sail ; which armed squadrons of two hundred 
galleys, and kept afloat at one time three thousand vessels ; 
which maintained communication by its fleets of galleys 
between London, Lisbon, Alexandria, Tunis, Tangiers, and 
Trebizond ; and which, having created manufactures, an archi- 
tecture, a school of painting, and an original society, trans- 
formed itself into a magnificent jewel of art, whilst its vessels 
and soldiers in Crete and in the Morea defended Europe 
against the last barbarian invasions." 

Judging by what remains to us we may readily conceive 
that such was Venice, at the climax of her material prosperity, 
"with her street pavement of liquid chrysoprase, with her 
palaces of porphyry and marble, her frescoed facades, her 
quays and squares aglow with the brilliant costumes of the 
Levant, her lagoons afloat with the galleys of all nations, her 
churches floored with mosaics, her silvery domes and ceilings 
glittering with sculptures bathed in molten gold." 
f 11 



122 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

These splendors have faded, but they have an incomparable 
fascination, even in their decay. They have, besides, a beauty 
not their own, which is imperishable, and by which they are 
etherealized and glorified beyond the possibilities of all human 
art. Venice is an adoptive chile] of Nature, endowed with a 
matchless loveliness of skies and waters, which never diminishes 
and never grows old. " Around the architecture," writes 
Taine, " the water, expanded into a lake, entwines its magical 
frame with its green and blue tones and its flickering sea-green 
crystal. . . . Reflections from the water flicker in the arched 
concave of the bridge, like figured silk drapery, rose, white, 
and green. . » . One contemplates the sea at his feet, rolling 
up in long, thin waves on the ruddy sand ; exquisite, melting, 
silken tints, veined roses and pale violets, like the draperies of 
Veronese, golden orange, yellows, vinous and intense, like 
Titian's simarres, tender greens drowned in dark blue, sea- 
green shades striped with silver, or flashing with sparks, 
undulate, conflict, and lose themselves under the innumerable 
flaming darts descending from above at every discharge of the 
sun's rays." 

Not less provocative of poetic rhapsody are the phenomena 
of the skies. Let an Italian describe them. Narrating his 
experiences as a looker-on in Venice, that brilliant literary 
bandit, Pietro Aretino, wrote to Titian : 

" From these animated scenes [on the Grand Canal] I turned 
my eyes to heaven, which, from the moment that God made it, 
has never been adorned with such painted loveliness of lights 
and shadows. The whole region of the air was what they who 
envy you because they are unable to be you would fain express. 
To begin with, the buildings of Venice, though of solid stone, 
seemed made of some ethereal substance. Then the sky was 
full of variety, here clear and ardent, there dulled and over- 
clouded. What marvellous clouds there were ! Masses of 
them in the centre of the picture hung above the house-roofs, 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 123 

while the immediate part was formed of a gray tint inclining 
to dark. I marvelled at the various colors they displayed. 
The nearer masses burned with flames of sunlight ; the more 
remote blushed with a blaze of crimson less afire. How 
splendidly did Nature's pencil treat and dispose that airy land- 
scape, keeping the sky apart from the palaces, just as Titian 
does ! On one side the sky showed a greenish blue, on another 
a bluish green, invented verily by the 'caprice of Nature, who 
is mistress of the greatest masters. With her lights and her 
darks there she was harmonizing, toning, and bringing out into 
relief, just as she wished." 

In terms still more chromatic Shelley describes a Venetian 

sunset : 

Half the sky 
Was roofed with clouds of rich emblazonry, 
Dark purple at the zenith, which still grew 
Down the steep west into a wondrous hue 
Brighter than burning gold, even to the rent 
Where the swift sun yet paused in his descent 
Among the many folded hills. . . . 
And then, as if the earth and sea had been 
Dissolved into one lake of fire, were seen 
Those mountains towering, as from waves of flame, 
Around the vaporous sun, from which there came 
The inmost purple spirit of light, and made 
The very peaks transparent. 

Such are the atmospheric splendors, the incomparable 
braveries of sea and sky, the gorgeous enchantments of light 
and color diffused through immensity of space, from which 
Venetian art has drawn its lessons and its inspiration. The 
Dutch and Flemish painters were instructed in the mysteries of 
color by the flowers which bloom so luxuriantly in their alluvial 
polders, and worthily did they profit by their gentle teachers ; 
but it was by flaming signs burning amidst the prismatic 
glories of ideal sunset skies that the painters of Venice were 
led to conquest. They had no flowers except the tinted shells 



124 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

called " flowers of the sea ;" they had no forests or meadows, 
and no sublimity of landscape save the shadowy outlines of 
the distant Alps ; but for all this lack they had ample com- 
pensation in their freedom — like that of the Dutch artists — 
from the bondage of aesthetic and ecclesiastical tradition, and 
in the brilliant grandeur of their " most excellent canopy, the 
air," — the " brave o'erhanging firmament," — the " majestical 
roof fretted with golden fire," which alone gave limits to their 
fancy. 

Fortunate as it was in its habitat, "Venetian art was no less 
fortunate in the epoch of its maturity. Ripening after the 
Milanese and Florentine schools had passed their meridian, and 
the great cinquecentists had given their best work to the world, 
it came at the right time to glorify in color what they had 
achieved in form, and to clothe with its chromatic blazonry all 
the material splendors of the renaissance. In the order of 
artistic sequence, no less than of time, a natural corollary and 
necessary complement to the art of Da Vinci, Michael Angelo, 
and Raphael was that of Tintoretto, Veronese, and Titian. 
To these great Venetians and their school it remained to ac- 
complish results which had not been accomplished before them, 
and thereby to give completeness and a crowning glory to 
Italian art. Masters in color as much as the Florentines or 
Romans were in drawing, they were by no means colorists 
only, nor were the attractions peculiar to their work wholly 
due to local inspiration. They were favored with adventitious 
opportunities and resources, but in composition and conception 
of form, no less than in color, their power was creative and 
thoroughly original. 

The soul of Venetian art, the central sun around which its 
planetary system revolves, is the magnificent genius of Titian. 
Altogether considered, with respect to its duration, the ampli- 
tude and uniform excellence of its work, and the influence, 
position, and emoluments with which it was rewarded, this 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 125 

great man's life of ninety-seven years is without a parallel in 
the history of painting. Like William I. of Germany, his 
greatest achievements were accomplished after he had passed 
the age of sixty years, and even after he had passed his 
eightieth year we find him engaged upon splendid compositions 
which no other hand has rivalled. His creations have the 
beauty which is indeed u a joy forever," because while it always 
endures it never satiates. I grew weary of Veronese, and felt that 
he might have painted better if he had painted less, but we never 
tire of Titian. We never quit him without feeling that he has 
further resources for pleasing which we have not exhausted, 
indeed cannot exhaust. He inscribed his pictures, not Tiziano 
fecit, but Tiziano faciebat, thus modestly confessing that, not- 
withstanding the excellence he had reached, there was still 
higher excellence to reach, — that while the achievements of 
his art were limited, its possibilities were infinite. 

Titian has been called the Sophocles of Painting, but he may 
be compared more aptly to Beethoven than to the Greek poet. 
The sublime and perfect harmony which pervades his works is 
suggestive rather of " the concord of sweet sounds" — of soar- 
ing flights of melody — than of the inspirations of the tragic 
muse. His Assumption of the Virgin, says a discriminating 
writer, " may best be described as a symphony, — a symphony 
of color in which every hue is brought into melodious play; a 
symphony of movement in which every line communicates 
' celestial sense of rhythm ; a symphony of light in which there 
is no cloud ; a symphony of joy in which saints, angels, and 
God himself sing hallelujah." 

Mrs. Jameson remarks that the effect of the Assumption 
is like that of music. Her record of the details of the picture 
is succinct and accurate : 

" The noble figure of the Virgin in a flood of golden light 
is borne, or rather impelled, upwards with such rapidity that 
her veil and drapery are disturbed by the motion. Her feet 

11* 



126 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

are uncovered, a circumstance inadmissible in ancient art, and 
her drapery, instead of being white, is of the usual blue and 
crimson, her appropriate colors in life. Her attitude, with 
outstretched arms; her face, not, indeed, a young or lovely 
face, but something far better, sublime and powerful in the 
expression of rapture ; the divinely beautiful and childish, yet 
devout, unearthly little augels around her ; the grand apostles 
below ; and the splendor of color over all, render this picture 
an enchantment at once to the imagination and the senses." 

To me its enchantment can never be lost, but will remain a 
continuing apocalypse of sublime and heavenly adoration. 

In the Assumption Titian reached his climax ; it is the 
crowning production of his art. No other treatment of the 
subject may be compared with it except Murillo's in the 
Louvre. 

Analogies have been drawn between Titian and Rubens, 
but their differences are more essential than their resemblances. 
Mr. Hillard states the case well: "The pictures of Rubens 
remind one of a flower-garden glittering with dew, in a June 
morning; those of Titian are like one of our own golden 
sunsets in autumn, seen through a thick screen of scarlet 
maples. In Rubens, coloring is more of an external charm ; 
. in Titian, more of an essential quality."* We might add that, 
in contrast with Rubens, Titian is never gross or extrava- 
gant; that his form and color are not copied, but idealized 
from nature ; and that his art, truthful without being coarsely 
realistic, glorifies and exalts the material qualities of our 
existence. 

It may be from insufficient study or defective judgment that 
I am unable to speak of Tintoretto "with the admiration 
which others have expressed. Impulsive, dramatic, original, 
he had, it must be confessed, extraordinary power of imagina- 

* " Six Months in Italy," by George S. Hillard. 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 127 

tion, coupled with great energy of production and expression. 
The Italians called him the Thunderbolt of Painting, His 
competitors, we are told, were dismayed at the fertility of his 
invention and the furious rapidity of his execution. But 
with less impetuosity and more concentration he would prob- 
ably have achieved results more uniformly creditable to his 
genius. Great pictures, like great actions, are simple, says 
Emerson. "The Greek battle-pieces are calm • the heroes, in 
whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect; as 
we say of Niagara, that it falls without speed." But sim- 
plicity and " repose in energy" are not among Tintoretto's 
virtues. He had a passion for vastness of canvas and for 
multiplicity of details, — an ambition to paint, as it were, by 
the acre, — which is notably illustrated by his famous Para- 
dise in the Grand Council Chamber of the Ducal Palace. 
The end wall of the chamber, which this immense fresco 
mostly covers, measures seventy-eight feet in length and forty- 
seven feet from floor to ceiling. The number of figures in 
the picture and the variety of their action are so great as to be- 
wilder rather than please. Rembrandt's Night Watch and 
Raphael's Transfiguration are together less than one-fif- 
teenth the size of this prodigious work, yet either of them 
surpasses it by more than fifteen times in the amount of pleas- 
ure it confers and the admiration it inspires. 

Veronese also shows a proneness to large canvas, but not 
beyond the extent which seems appropriate to his decorative 
splendors. Less apology can be made for his glaring offences 
against historical truth, however palliated by his richness of 
color and grace of execution. This artist is Venetian or 
nothing. Whether he presents to us the family of Darius 
before Alexander, the marriage at Cana, or a mythological 
allegory, his architecture and costumes are of the sixteenth 
century, and his men and women all Venetians. 

Veronese can be studied almost as well at Paris, Dresden, or 



128 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Vienna as he can at Venice. His productive energy was 
great, and his works are widely distributed. His Darius 
before Alexander is at London, his Adoration of the Magi 
at Milan, his Rescue of Moses at Madrid, his Judith at 
Genoa, his Queen of Sheba at Turin, his Gods of Olympus 
at Treviso, his St. Anthony at Rome. The best of his 
portraits are at Florence. His masterpiece, the Marriage 
at Cana, twenty by thirty feet in size, is in the Louvre 
gallery, which also possesses his Christ at the House of 
Simon, fourteen by twenty-seven feet. His chief allegorical 
work, Venice Enthroned as Queen, adorns one of the great 
ceilings in the Ducal Palace at Venice, and though much 
damaged, retains charms enough to electrify the pen of Taine, 
who thus describes its "Amid grand architectural forms of 
balconies and spiral columns sits Venice, the blonde, on a 
throne radiant with beauty, with that fresh and rosy carnation 
peculiar to the daughters of humid climates. . . . Her white 
silk robe embroidered with golden lilies undulates over a 
mantle of ermine and scarlet ; her arm, delicate hand, and 
bending dimpled fingers rest their satiny purity and soft ser- 
pentine contours on the lustrous material. The face is in 
shadow,- — a half-shadow roseate with a cool, palpable atmos- 
phere enlivening still more the carmine of the lips; the lips, 
are cherries, while all the shadow is intensified by the lights on 
the hair, the soft gleams of pearls on the neck and in the ears, 
and the scintillations of the diadem whose jewels seem to be 
magical eyes. She smiles with an air of royal and beaming 
benignity, like a flower happy in its expanded and blooming 
petals." 

The passion of Veronese for elegant display is further 
illustrated in his Christ at the House of Levi, in the Venice 
Academy. This picture is about equal in size to the Cana, 
and of much the same style of treatment. A festival scene is 
displayed amidst a great open palace court which is crowded 



FROM SNOW TO SUN. 129 

with guests and servants all in splendid attire, and all Vene- 
tian. Such is the captivating beauty of the work — its grace 
of form and its charms of light and color — that we readily 
forgive its anachronism. 

The architecture of Venice, like its art, embodies and per- 
petuates the splendors of the renaissance. It does more ; it 
exhibits an inventive faculty, such as has been manifested 
nowhere else, in the creation of new and harmonious styles by 
the combination of classic, Gothic, and Byzantine forms. The 
palaces which rise along the curvatures of the Grand Canal 
have, with symmetry of proportions and congruity of style, 
each an individuality distinguishing it from the rest. Supreme 
in this array of original architectural graces is the Ducal 
Palace, — a unique growth of centuries, so inimitably beautiful 
in its fantastic garnishment of pointed arches and mottled 
marquetry of rose and white that its like has never been 
produced or attempted. 

Of the churches of Venice — excepting St. Mark's — I can 
only speak with a sense of chill which time does not assuage. 
Something more is required than the glow of Venetian color 
to countervail their December dreariness, and make the damp 
and gloom of their midwinter grandeur lovable. Even the 
splendors of St. Mark's, — its bewitching conglomerate of 
Romanesque, Gothic, Saracenic, and Byzantine, its dazzling 
confusion of barbaric sorceries in bronze and stone, its wealth 
of delicate interior workmanship and precious adornment,— 
even these gain immensely from the favor of the sun. Let 
those who would see Venice in the fulness of its charms go 
there at any other season than winter. 

My departure for Rome took place on a sombre December 
afternoon. The gondola which conveyed me from the hotel 
to the railway station passed through the Grand Canal, — the 
Venetian Champs filysees, whose novel scenes are always 
lively enough to prevent any melancholy last impressions. 



130 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

But no sooner had our train rolled over the causeway to the 
main-land than we came into a less friendly atmosphere than 
that of the lagoon. Winter in Northern Italy is very much 
like winter north of the Alps, except that the cold, though less 
severe, is more keenly felt. Snow fell thick and fast, bending 
and breaking the mulberry-trees of Venetia and Lombardy 
with its clinging weight. " Man instinctively flees from 
winter," says Mr. Hillard, but something more than instinct 
impelled me to wish that our southward flight might be more 
rapid than it was. Yet the more I wished, and the greater grew 
my impatience, the slower the train moved. Ploughing its way 
through the deep snow, the locomotive -wheezed and groaned 
more and more feebly until some time after nightfall, when it 
came to a dead halt. A few more spasmodic forms of effort, 
and it stood motionless and silent. For five hours there were 
no further signs of going ahead. The cold increased as the 
night wore on, and the hot-water cylinders by which the 
coaches were warmed lost their last vestiges of heat. As well 
as could be made out in the darkness and storm, we had 
halted in the open country, with no house or village anywhere 
near. A gang of frowzy men, rough-looking enough for 
veritable bandits, crowded into the coupe which I occupied 
alone, and took possession of the vacant space. They might 
have been bent on " stratagems and spoils" for aught I knew, 
— they looked it ; but M r hen the presumptive chief cutpurse 
of the party politely asked me whether I would be offended 
if he should light his pipe, my suspicions were allayed. Re- 
plying, I pointed to the Italian legend on the door, — " It is 
forbidden to smoke," — and the man put away his pipe im- 
mediately. Per contra, a few days later a well-dressed English 
tourist entered the non-smoking coupe in which I happened to 
be travelling, stretched himself at full length upon the bench 
opposite me, and deliberately began smoking, without saying 
" By your leave." In that particular instance I did not point 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 131 

to the Italian inhibition, but made effectual use of plain Anglo- 
Saxon. 

About midnight a shrill locomotive scream was heard afar, 
— help was coming. Later, more and nearer screams, then 
some petulant jerks, and the train actually moved. My polite 
bandit companions quitted me at the next station, and smoked, 
no doubt, for the rest of the night, as villanous tobacco as 
bandit ever piped. An hour or two later the cry of " Bologna !" 
was heard, and when daylight broke we were circling among 
the bald, brown summits of the Apennines. Descending the 
southern slopes of the mountains, we emerged from cloud 
into sunshine, — from a region of snow to one of green vegeta- 
tion, — and by 10 o'clock a.m. were at Florence. A few days 
later I plucked roses at a wayside station between Rome and 
Naples. 

CHAPTER X. 

AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS, 

I. 

Geliebtes Berchtesgaden, 

Sei tausendmal gegriisst, 
Du Thai von Gottesgnaden, 

Von Gottes Mund gekusst. 
Im Lenz, im Herbstgewande 

Bewahrst du deinen Eeiz, 
Du Perle deutscher Lande, 

Du Bayern's traute Schweiz ! 

Berchtesgaden, September 3. — There is no railway at 
Berchtesgaden.* The giddy swirl of human currents and 
eddies but faintly ruffles the placid life of this sequestered 

* Since the date here referred to a narrow-gauge line has been opened 
for travel between Berchtesgaden and Reichenhall. It crosses the range 
by the Hallthurm Pass, between the Lattengehirge and the Untersberg. 



132 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

valley. The blare and clamorous rush of the great world's 
feverish activities are here almost unperceived. The village, 
with its white cottages shining amidst its setting of green 
meadows, which slope gently to the torrent of the Aim, is a 
picture of perfect peace. All around it, or nearly so, great 
mountains lift their summits to the sky, and seem to defy and 
shut out the beating ocean of human turmoil. 

The nearest town of importance is Salzburg, from whence a 
carriage-road ascends to this place along the narrow defile of 
the Aim, whose waters, poured from the glaciers, rush im- 
petuously in their rocky channel. Beside the Aim, on its left 
bank, rise the triple peaks of the Untersberg, in whose vertical 
cliffs, far above, a curious opening known as the Dragon's Den 
may be perceived. Beneath this mountain, according to an 
old tradition, the soul of Charlemagne reposes, awaiting the 
call of the reunited German nations. 

Passing under the shadows of other cliffs which frown along 
the torrent, and emerging from the upper defile of the Aim, 
we behold the village of Berchtesgaden, nestled in its mountain 
cradle. Beyond it appears the forked crag of the Watzman, 
with its glacier hung in mid-air, and its fissured crown streaked 
with perpetual snow. Opposite to the Watzman, on the right 
bank of the Aim, rise the Schwarzkopf and the Goll, the first 
covered with vegetation from base to summit, the latter lifting 
far higher than its neighbor its gray, weather-beaten, snow- 
patched walls of rock. Beyond these, on either hand, are 
seen the colossal forms of various peaks, ragged or pointed, 
whose lines, approaching as they stretch away, close in far 
perspective. Amidst this sublime scene we hear naught but 
the rush of descending waters, the tinkling of pasturage bells, 
and, accordant with these, the sounds of village life. 

Berchtesgaden was formerly the seat of a spiritual princi- 
pality, the territories of which, very small and very mountain- 
ous, were said to measure nearly as much up and down as they 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 133 

did crosswise. Not over one-sixth of the surface was culti- 
vable, all the rest consisting of lake, forest, and barren rock. 
The village now subsists by means of its neighboring salt- 
mines and pastures, and its wood-carvings, which have some 
reputation. With these few resources its fifteen hundred people 
seem to make themselves comfortable, and, what is better, con- 
tented. They hold tenaciously to the customs of their ances- 
tors, little troubling themselves as to what changes may take 
place in the ways of the world outside their mountain barriers. 
Last night, while writing late, I heard the village watchman 
in the street, calling the' hours in the quaint old rhymes, — 

Ihr lieben Leute ! Lasst Eucli sagen I 
Die Glocke hat nun Zehn gesehlagen ! 
Bewahrt das Feuer und das Licht 
Dass Niemanden Schaden gesehicht ; 
etc., etc., etc. 

The rock-salt deposits of Berchtesgaden have been known, 
and • more or less worked, for centuries. The entrance to the 
old shaft bears the date 1628. The deposit is found in the 
breast of the mountain, about a mile below the village, and is 
supposed to be continuous with that which is worked at Hal- 
lein, on the Salzach. The works at Hallstadt, and at Ischl on 
the Traun, doubtless pierce the same general formation, but 
the veins there have a greater intermixture of clay than those 
of Berchtesgaden, whose mine is the most interesting and 
accessible of the entire salt-bearing region of Tyrol. I chose 
a rainy afternoon for visiting this mine, and found its subter- 
ranean darkness and mystery no unpleasant exchange for the 
drizzle and fog which prevailed outside. Before entering the 
galleries, visitors of both sexes are required to dress them- 
selves in a bifurcate miner's costume, not graceful, but useful, 
and are each provided with a small lantern. Our party was 
an accidental group, — mostly Austrians and Bavarians, — in- 

12 



134 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

eluding some modest-mannered, rosy-faced country maidens, 
who were very much abashed, at first, by their grotesque toilet, 
but soon changed their diffidence to rippling merriment. 

Following the guide, we entered the mine, single file. The 
ingoing gallery is about five feet wide by seven high in the 
clear, admirably walled and vaulted with stone, and perfectly 
dry throughout. For some hundreds of yards we walked up 
a rather steep incline, occasionally mounting from one plane to 
another by stairs, and .passing numerous branch galleries radi- 
ating right and left. Like a procession of cowled and shrouded 
monks, we advanced in this way for an apparently long distance, 
M 7 heu we arrived at the brink of a precipice, adowh which 
sloped a wooden bench, polished on top as smooth as glass, 
and ending in abysmal darkness. Placing himself astride of 
this bench, the guide invited us all to take similar positions, 
one after another, in his rear. The ladies hesitated a little, 
but soon all were in line, my own person being so placed as to 
serve as a buffer to one of Austria's fair daughters. Then, at 
a signal, away the whole party darted, with the speed of au 
arrow, down the incline. It seemed as though, once started, 
we could never stop except by some violent concussion, but at 
the bottom the bench extended far enough in a horizontal 
direction to enable the guide, assisted by our own inertia, to 
bring us to a halt as gently as a falling feather. So pleased 
and exhilarated were the ladies by this adventure, that they 
showed no hesitation when they came to the next slide, or to 
any of the subsecp:ient ones. On the contrary, the more they 
had of das Rutschen, as they called it in German, the better 
they liked it. 

We now found ourselves within an immense chamber, whose 
walls and roof sparkled with salt crystals. The floor was a 
lake, for crossing whose dark waters a boat lay ready moored. 
To make the scene more impressive, numerous lights were 
kindled, additional to those we carried, and were multiplied 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 135 

many times by reflected repetition in the water. Our voyage 
across the lake was not tedious or stormy, but was unique in 
the extreme. The old Greek fable had become reality, or 
nearly so ; we had entered the Plutonian dominions ; we be- 
held around and above us the sparkling splendors of their 
monarch's palace; we swam upon Acheron's bitter waters, 
and it only remained to us to taste those waters — in accord- 
ance with the customs of Hades — before yielding our souls to 
animate other bodies than our own when we should return to 
the blessed light of day. Not caring to surrender our spirits 
just yet, — particularly not for other people's benefit, — we care- 
fully abstained from tasting those waters. In other respects 
the Plutonian programme was carried out to the letter. 

Landing upon the farther shore, we pursued our way from 
one maze of galleries and chambers to another, sometimes 
ascending an inclined plane, or a stairway, and sometimes 
plunging into tartarean depths on the wooden slides. The 
whole interior of the mountain seemed to have been burrowed 
in the course of centuries, yet without having sensibly im- 
paired its resources in the sought-for mineral. Here and there 
veins of almost pure salt were seen cropping out, its crystals, 
white and yellow, glittering before the light with diamond- 
like brilliancy. The mineral is not extracted in a solid state, 
but is drawn off in the form of brine, which is obtained by 
pumping fresh water into the chambers and allowing it to re- 
main from four to six weeks, during which period it becomes 
thoroughly saturated with salt. Owing to the scarcity of fuel 
about Berchtesgaden, the brine is forced through pipes over 
the mountains to Reichenhall, where it is reduced by boiling. 
In crossing the range, the pipes by which the brine is thus 
conducted are carried to a height of nearly two thousand feet. 

When the last stage of our visit had been reached, the 
party was conducted to a miniature tramway, and mounted a 
train of pygmy carriages, so constructed that all were obliged 



136 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

to sit astride. When every one was ready, the brakes were 
loosened, and the little train went, as Burns would say, — 

Down hill scrievin', 
*Wi' rattlin' glee. 

Thus we descended a steep gallery, so narrow as to enclose the 
train and its freight like a cartridge in a musket-barrel, and 
were literally shot out of the mine, passing from darkness to 
daylight with such suddenness as to be almost bewildering. 
Such was the end of this strange underground experience. 

I was now impatient for weather suitable for visiting that 
gem of Alpine lakes, the Konigssee, an hour's walk' from 
Berchtesgaden ; but although the rain ceased, the remorseless 
fog still hung thick and low on the mountains, concealing 
everything above a certain plane. The barometer indicated 
favorably, but not until another day had passed, and another 
night had fallen, did the vapory curtains begin to part and 
reveal the sublime panorama behind them. At 9 p.m., after 
this day of fog, the bald summit of the Goll once more dis- 
closed its rounded outliue against the sky, and half an hour 
later the light of the moon broke upon its colossal form in full 
relief. At daybreak next morning I heard a voice under my 
window saying, Jetzt sind die Berge wieder zu sehen, — a declara- 
tion which my own eyes speedily confirmed. The sky had 
completely cleared during the night, and the light of a most 
auspicious day for the Konigssee had dawned. With two 
German friends, — a lady and gentleman, — I was not slow to 
improve it. The lake may easily be reached by carriage from 
Berchtesgaden, but a much preferable route is had by foot-path, 
leading through forests aromatic with the exhalations of pine- 
and fir-trees, musical with the gurgle of crystal waters, and 
disclosing, through parted foliage, ravishing glimpses of the 
sunlit mountains. On the left, as we proceed along this path, 
rises the rocky bastion of the Goll, flanked by the dark, pointed 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 137 

Schwarzkopf, and on the right are seen, piercing the blue sky, 
the sharp gray spikes which form the forked mitre of the 
Watzman. An hour and a half of leisurely walking through 
the valley which separated these giants brought us to the 
margin of the lake, whose mountain-girdled disk of translucent 
emerald lay smooth and brilliant in the caressing light of 
morning. 

Among Alpine waters nothing surpasses this lovely gem. 
In some respects it is the fairest jewel of them all. Magnifi- 
cent in its setting, it has, with all the transparency and change- 
fulness of color of Lake Thun, or Lake Brienz, an exquisite 
softness of tint and grace of outline peculiarly its own. In 
size it is correspondingly dainty. Its length is but six miles, 
its breadth but a mile and a half, its depth seven hundred feet. 
Lake Thun is nearly twice as long and has a depth of over 
eighteen hundred feet ; Lake Lucerne is four and a half times 
as long, but has a depth of only five hundred and ten feet. 
The Konigssee has but one village upon its banks, there 
being scarcely room for more among its rocky environments. 
The mountains which surround it rise perpendicularly from the 
lake, or nearly so, and attain a height of seven thousand feet. 
Where vegetation is possible, the mountain sides are dressed 
with fir-trees, or slope in velvet meadow-green to the mirroring 
waters. Alpine salmon, occasionally of enormous size, are 
caught in the lake, and chamois upon the neighboring moun- 
tains are sometimes driven into it, and shot from boats. St. 
Bartholomew, whose name it sometimes takes, is honored with 
a chapel upon one of its promontories, and with an annual 
festival, during which the chapel is visited by many pilgrims, 
and the heights around the lake are illuminated with bonfires. 
Upon another promontory stands a villa of the late Baron 
Beust, Premier of Austria-Hungary. 

Boats, of which the rowers are usually stalwart peasant 
girls, are always in waiting for visitors who wish to make the 

12* 



138 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WATS. 

tour of the lake. Two brawny-armed women, and a man less 
athletic in appearance, propelled our boat containing four 
persons. The water was disturbed by no ripple save those 
made by our intrusion ; its emerald was mingled with the 
cerulean of the sky ; and in its depths were reflected, as in a 
mirror, all the surrounding grandeur of the mountains. There 
was no cloud in the heavens, but had there been one, its image 

7 7 O 

would have floated as distinctly and radiantly in the waters 
beneath as its reality in the air above. After one or two islets 
were passed, the lake became visible in its entire extent, and a 
glacier torrent was seen leaping from an overhanging crag 
and descending in silvery spray until it merged itself with the 
aerial, almost imperceptible, plane of crystal. 

At the head of the lake we disembarked and ascended, on 
foot, through a rocky pasture to the Obersee, a sort of natural 
reservoir half a mile wide, environed by lofty, treeless preci- 
pices of limestone. No human habitation breaks this solitude, 
and no sound was heard in it save the subdued reverberations 
of an unseen torrent falling from the Kaunerwand. 

On the return voyage our sinewy oars women soon brought 
us to the St. Bartholomew landing, at the foot of the Watz- 
man, where, beneath the shade of some far-spreading castanian 
trees, we dined on trout, and feasted our souls upon the un- 
speakable beauty of the lake and the grandeur of its stern but 
magnificent guardians, the mountains. 

Saalfelden, September 8. — Tyrol may be travelled through 
by rail, but not thus can it be seen. One-third of its entire 
surface consists of glaciers, perpetual snow-fields, and barren 
rocks ; half of all the rest is covered with forests, and but one- 
third is arable land. Most of these regions lie beyond the 
reach, as yet, of the locomotive. The supremest grandeur of 
their solitudes, the rarest beauty of their sequestered meadows, 
ice-fields, and silvery cascades, and the most bounteous hos- 
pitality of their robust, honest-hearted inhabitants are reserved 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 139 

for the pedestrian. All these, if seen and enjoyed to the full, 
must be sought for and explored alpen-stock in hand. 

Entirely convinced of this, I resolved to plunge into the 
heart of the mountains and seek out their solitary places. My 
first plan was, quitting Berchtesgaden, to climb over the Ross- 
felcl to Golling, then visit the Lueg Pass, and proceed up the 
valley of the Salzach. A German acquaintance, who knew 
the country, persuaded me out of this. " You will find the 
tramp over the Rossfeld quite interesting but very fatiguing," 
said he. " I made it once, but wouldn't try it again. There 
is no path, and the route is in some places very steep, — so 
steep," — holding his arm at an angle of about fifty degrees. 
" You will pass up that ravine there, between the Schwarzkopf 
and the G511," he continued, pointing. " It will take you 
about seven hours to get over the mountain, and when you 
come to Golling you will find nothing very interesting." 

" But the Lueg Pass ?" I suggested. 

" It wouldn't repay you for such a tramp. I visited it once, 
and was provoked with myself for doing so. It is a striking 
ravine, but much inferior to others you will see in the Tyrol." 

The speaker, a Frankfort rentier, was slightly corpulent, 
and was neither an enthusiast nor an expert in mountain climb- 
ing. He. readily agreed, however, that he and his niece, a 
young lady from Mayence, would accompany me to the Hirsch- 
biihl Pass next day, the journey to Hintersee, at the foot of the 
pass, to be made by Einspdnner. Wishing to disencumber my- 
self of my baggage, I was advised to forward it to some ad- 
vance station on my route by post. Accordingly, I had it 
taken to the post-office and registered for Innsbruck. The cost 
was but a trifle, and the convenience of forwarding a heavy 
portmanteau, like a letter or a newspaper, through the mails, 
was something of a novelty to an American, yet a convenience 
nevertheless, and a valuable one. The young clerk who 
counted the charges on my packages made a mistake in his 



140 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

reckoning which his chief detected, and severely rebuked him 
for then and there. 

The Einspanner of Tyrol is a stout little fiacre adapted to 
any road or path practicable for wheels. It will comfortably 
seat two persons, and, in case of necessity, four. It is an 
admirable convenience for ready transit over the allowable 
gaps between pedestrian tours. I was now about to cover an 
allowable gap ; that is to say, I was about to travel for some 
hours by Einspanner to accommodate my companions, when, 
but for their company, walking would have been much more 
agreeable. The weather was perfect, — a fact always note- 
worthy in the Alps. Quitting Berchtesgaden upon a cloudless 
morning, we took our course along the valley of the Ramsauer 
Ache, a noisy little torrent tributary to the Aim. This valley, 
popularly known as the Ramsau, meanders among beautifully- 
formed mountains, with whose strong gray color its light-green, 
velvety meadows, and its luxuriant forests, with patches of 
dark-green pine and fir, present some most pleasing contrasts. 
We see in this a striking illustration of nature's skill in 
harmonizing and intensifying color. The verdancy of the 
valley gains perceptibly in beautifying power from the sober 
hue of its rock-rimmed setting. Over all, accentuating all, 
towers the Watzman, grim and grand, with the white glacier 
hanging from its seamed crag like a mighty banner in the sky. 

Many things are seen in the Ramsau illustrative of the 
social and religious customs peculiar to the Tyrol. These 
customs vary with the configuration of the country, giving to 
each community a social individuality distinct from the others. 
Sequestered from the rest of the world by huge mountain 
ranges, the people of each valley naturally adopt ways of their 
own. The circumambient peaks and glaciers, whose massive 
barriers of ice and rock blend with the sky, bound the horizon 
of their existence ; within this narrow sphere most of them 
are born and marry, live and die. Their traditions, and 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 141 

modes of dress, language, and social intercourse, fortified by 
nature, as well as habit, from foreign taint, are as indig- 
enous as the hardy flora of their mountains, and are passed 
from generation to generation without material change. 

But there is one respect in which all the Tyrolese, Austrian 
and Bavarian, are alike, and wherein even lofty mountain 
ranges can draw no strongly-marked distinctions among them ; 
and that is in their ardent, implicit, unquestioning belief in 
the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church. Their faith in 
the church and their fidelity to its practices have become parts 
of their moral — we might almost say physical — constitution, 
ingrained in their very natures. Probably they would have 
been just as ardently Protestant had they been first indoctri- 
nated in that belief. There seems to be some influence in a 
mountainous country which begets intensity of religious feel- 
ing. We see it .in Swiss communities where Protestantism 
prevails, just as we perceive it among the mountains of Tyrol 
where Catholicism is paramount. But the Tyrolese communi- 
ties are more segregated from the currents of travel and from 
political and religious agitation than the Swiss, and they are 
as unsophisticated as they are isolated. The Tyrolese are a 
simple-hearted, confiding folk, and what they believe they 
believe with all their might. If the primeval innocence of 
man could have been preserved anywhere, it would have been 
preserved in the sequestered, mountain-girdled valleys of 
Tyrol. 

We pass nobody, young or old, on these mountains, who 
does not speak to us a friendly Grilss Gott as we go by. The 
people seem to take delight in being hospitable to strangers, 
and the more savage their natural surroundings, the more re- 
mote they are from what is currently called civilization, the 
more open-hearted are they. Nor are their expressions of 
religious feeling any less effusive ; with them, human sympathy 
and religious duty go together. No dwelling, however humble, 



142 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

lacks some emblem of the Virgin, and of the Infant and 
Crucified Saviour. Along the public highways these emblems 
are so frequent as to become tiresome. Wherever there is a 
spring, or convenient stopping-place, a little painting of the 
Madonna and Child is attached to a tree, fence, or rock, with 
appropriate fixtures before it upon which the devout can kneel. 
Some pious admonition, spelt by the unlettered muse, generally 
accompanies these emblems. If an accident happened on the 
road, or near it, by which somebody lost his life, the fact is 
always commemorated by some form of devout symbolism, 
accompanied by a textual account of the casualty, and a request 
to passers-by to invoke for the deceased die eivige Ruhe. These 
melancholy stories of misfortune and accompanying admoni- 
tions to pray for the souls of the dead are strikingly appropri- 
ate to the pokerish places where such tablets are usually seen. 
Many of these way-side emblems, the penitential offerings, 
no doubt, of burdened consciences, have been abandoned to the 
6port of the elements, while others bear touching evidences of 
reverent care. The images of the Virgin, seldom wholly 
neglected, are often wreathed by adoring hands with flowers, 
and inscribed with sentiments expressed in phrases homely, yet 
appropriate and beautiful. A rude painting representing 
Mary supporting the dead Christ in her arms, which, nailed to 
a tree, I chanced upon in a wild solitude of the upper Alps, 
bore these lines : 

Tod liegt Jesus in deinen Armen, 

Tod auf dienen Mutter-Sckoos : 
Welches Herz fiihlt nieht mit Dir Erbarmen, 

Mutter I O, wie ist dein Schmerz so gross ! 

Sometimes the road-side shrine contains a life-size image of 
the Virgin, or of some saint, but a more common token is the 
crucifix, which is seen everywhere. The rude realism with 
which the body of Christ, writhing upon the cross, is repre- 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 143 

sented in this emblem, is often unpleasing, even shocking. 
The imagination is taxed in simulating the tragedy of Calvary 
in all its details, and in its most revolting aspect. The blood, 
the nails, the hammer with which the nails were driven, the 
spear-wound and the weapon which produced it, the crown of 
thorns and the bloody laceration caused by it, the muscular 
contortions and physical anguish of death, — all are there, and 
the more horrifying the representation, the more powerfully it 
appeals, perhaps, to the untutored mind. There is a certain 
harmony, moreover, between this rude art and the savage 
grandeur of the mountains. Although in the Tyrol we see the 
crucifix so often, and in so many places wholly inappropriate 
to such an emblem, that ordinarily it ceases to be impressive, 
yet there are occasions when, as betokening the awful agony 
of the crucifixion, it becomes the very key-note in the wild tu- 
mult of nature. No inanimate thing can be more profoundly, 
weirdly significant than one of these tragic symbols seen hang- 
ing above the mist and fury of a resounding torrent, or in the 
dim silence of a crag-bound ravine, or amidst the cloud-swept 
solitudes of glacier, rock, and wind-beaten forest. This sign 
of human hope lifted up amidst the world's moral desolation 
seems to gather meaning amidst such scenes of elemental 
anarchy. 

Among the curious customs which prevail in the Ramsau is 
that of nailing upon the house wherein an occupant has died 
a coffin-shaped board inscribed with an epitaph of the deceased. 
Sometimes these boards are nailed to trees, or to the cow-stable 
instead of the dwelling, and when they happen to be numerous 
give quite a funereal aspect to the premises. 

The people of the Ramsau, or the Rarnsauers, as they are 
called for short, unlike the inhabitants of some other valleys, 
have no especial singularities of dress. Their costume is in 
the regulation style of Tyrol. Both men and women wear 
black felt hats, those of the women being most pointed at the 



144 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

top and broadest in the brim. A man's hat would be grossly 
out of fashion without a feather or some other pert emblem 
stuck up behind. The women wear a jaunty jacket, with 
much bravery of buttons and beads and skirts, sometimes of 
gay colors, short enough for easy walking. The men wear 
short trousers, terminating above the knee-joints, which are left 
bare both winter and summer. The lower limbs are dressed 
in thick woollen stockings. In the Zillerthal a somewhat dif- 
ferent costume is worn, that of the men comprising a brown 
leathern jacket, a red waistcoat, an embroidered leathern girdle, 
black leather knee-breeches, and white stockings. The women, 
when in holiday attire, wear a velvet bodice, blue apron, vel- 
vet skirts of not inconvenient length, and, like the men, 
pointed, broad-brimmed hats with gold tassels. 

Various dialects are spoken in Tyrol, some of which are 
among the worst which ever tested the capacity of the German 
language for distortion. Correctly-speaking Germans, not ac- 
customed to this patois, find difficulty in comprehending it. 

The clean and tidy country inns of the Ramsau are models 
of their kind. In the garden of the establishment, where 
tables are daintily spread under the trees, beside murmuring 
waters, and within visual range of some bewitching panorama 
of the mountains, refreshments are served by one or more of 
the rosy-cheeked, jauntily-dressed daughters of Tyrol. We 
could not forbear, of course, to stop, for a time, at one of these 
attractive loitering-places, nor could we help noticing with 
quite as much interest as we were noticed by some guests who 
had preceded us. Among these was a very stalwart man, ac- 
companied by a lady of medium stature, dressed, like himself, 
in the ordinary attire of the Tyrolese peasantry. With them 
were, two quarrelsome dogs, which their master soon had occa- 
sion to castigate for fighting. When this canine fracas had 
subsided, the maid who served us whispered to me in German, 
with the air of one imparting prodigious information, " The 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 145 

Grand Duke and Duchess of AViirtemberg. They are making 
a hunting tour in the Rarnsau." 

Our farther course up the valley brought us to the Wim- 
bach Klamra, a tributary gorge so deep and narrow, and so 
shadowed with brush and trees, that the sun can shine into it 
only in the afternoon. Some lovely cascades are made by the 
blue waters of the brook which courses through the Klamm, 
at the upper extremity of which a magnificent view is ob- 
tained of the wild Wimbachthal, enclosed by gigantic moun- 
tains. 

At the little green lake known as the Hintersee, from 
whence the majestic Goll, by this time far off, was again seen 
in full profile, we dismissed our Einspanner and proceeded on 
foot up the valley, following a delightful path among the fir- 
trees, between whose parted branches could be seen on the one 
hand the Hochkalter, and on the other the Muhlsturzhorn, 
with their grotesque rock forms, and their curiously-notched 
and pointed summits tossed against the sky at the height of 
seven to eight thousand feet. 

An ascent of three hours brought us to the summit of the 
Hirschbiihl Pass, now a point on the boundary between Austria 
and Bavaria, and once the scene of a fierce combat between the 
armies of those countries. After an hour's rest at the inn on 
the pass, I bade adieu to my companions and pushed on alone 
for Saalfelden. The road descends rapidly on the southern 
side of the mountain, along the solitary defile of the Weiss- 
bach, affording at every turn some new disclosure of far-sweep- 
ing mountains, and of the giddy precipices and profound 
chasms of the gorge. No glaciers were in sight, but upon 
some of the loftiest summits patches of snow lingered in spots 
not directly reached by the sun. Amidst the deep tranquillity 
no sound was heard save that of whispering waters, and no 
human creature was met upon the unfrequented path. About 
half-way down the mountain a profounder solitude still was 
g k 13 



146 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

reached, — that of the Seissenberg Klamm, a very deep and 
narrow gorge, worn through the strata by the torrent of the 
Weissbach, and overgrown with a matted mass of bushes and 
vines, through which the sunlight filters, giving to the interior 
a peculiar coloring. A mile and a half below the Klamm, 
Oberweissbach — the first settlement — is reached, from 
whence the route to Saalfelden lies through the grand defile 
known as the Hohlwege (hollow way), extending for six 
miles between lofty buttresses of rock. At the summit of 
these buttresses, east of the Hohlwege, lies a desolate rocky 
district known as the Steinerne Meer, — sea of stones. 

Just before sundown a turn in the defile disclosed to me, 
twenty miles ahead, the vast range of the Hohe Tauern, with 
its mighty glaciers hanging in the sky. As night closed in 
its huge mass became lost in the darkness, except its snow- 
fields shimmering here and there in that unwonted brilliancy 
of the stars which is sometimes observed in Alpine regions. 
One star especially, which hung in a notch of the rocky wall 
of the Hohlwege, flamed and coruscated with the splendor of a 
monster diamond. 

Late in the evening I was still groping along the solitary 
road when the distant rumble of a railway train became per- 
ceptible. An hour later I was refreshed from the wholesome 
weariness of the day's jaunt by the homely but most agreeable 
hospitalities of the Auerwirth, at Saalfelden. 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 147 



CHAPTER XL 

AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 
II. 

Innsbruck, September 10. — A quaint little old village is 
Saalfelden. Strange that so newfangled, unquiet a thing as a 
railway should have ever sought it out in its remote mountain 
nest. In a pretty valley, surrounded by heights upon which 
stand ruined castles centuries old, its single spire rises amidst its 
clustered dwellings. On its northern side the valley is bounded 
by a lofty sierra of bare limestone, above which lies the great 
rocky plateau popularly known as the Steineme Meer. South- 
ward are seen the cloudy peaks of the Hohe Tauern, and 
among them the outlying ice-fields of the vast glacier region 
known as the Gross Glockner. 

Going towards Salzburg, the railway here turns southward 
to Zell-am-See, beyond which, after skirting the lake, it takes 
an eastward course down the valley of the Salzach. Among 
the numerous summer resorts of the Austrian Tyrol, Zell 
stands high in popular esteem. Though not so fashionable as 
Gmiinden, and not favored by royalty like Ischl or Gastein, it 
abounds in substantial comforts and attractions for the visitor. 
Its situation is upon the margin of a lovely lake, about three 
and one-half miles long, whose cerulean waters are five degrees 
warmer than the atmosphere, owing to the warm springs 
which rise within its basin. From a boat in the middle of the 
lake the grandeur of its surrounding scenery may be enjoyed 
at one panoramic view. Another view, still wider and sub- 
limer, taking in the whole of the Tauern range, and including 
both the Gross Glockner and the Gross Venediger glacier 
regions, may be had by climbing a height near Zell known as 



148 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

the Schmittener Hohe. The panorama of mountain magni- 
ficence surveyed from this point is one of the finest in the 
Austrian Alps. 

Hiring an Einspanner, I set out from Zell-am-See for 
Ivrimml, at the head of the Salzach Valley. Opposite Zell, 
that valley lies broad and marshy, bounded on its south side 
by the snow-crowned giants of the Tauern range. Amidst 
these giants, almost vis-a-vis to Zell, opens the wild and 
beautiful valley known as the Kaprunerthal, about eighteen 
miles in length, extending back to the very heart of the great 
Glockner glacier, of which it is the principal outlet. As we 
proceeded up the left bank of the Salzach we obtained some 
fine views of the scenery of this valley, from the village and 
ruined castle of Kaprun, at its entrance, to the glittering ice- 
fields of the Hohe Tenn, partially disclosing themselves in the 
morning mists ten thousand feet above the plain. 

The region of the Salzach, from the source of that stream 
down to St. Johann, where its course changes from east to 
north, is known as the Pinzgau, of which there are two local 
sections, the upper and lower. The Pinzgauers are not so 
highly esteemed for intelligence, 'cleanliness, and thrift as the 
Ramsauers, or the Zillerthalers, — a fact comporting with their 
dialect, which is one of the worst corruptions of the German 
heard in Tyrol. The chief industries of the valley are wool- 
growing, the manufacture of coarse cloth, and small farming. 
While gypsies and other vagabonds are frequently met upon 
the highways, a large part, apparently most, of the farm-work 
is done by women, who are seen in the fields mowing, pitching 
hay, ploughing, and performing other ordinary muscular labor. 
But this out-door service of women is not peculiar to the Pinz- 
gau ; it is seen everywhere in Tyrol. As might be expected 
where such customs prevail, the women are brawny-limbed 
and stalwart, like the men, and the lovely roses of the Alps, of 
whose fascinations we read in fiction, have few living prototypes. 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 149 

Throughout the eutire Pinzgau the valley of the Salzach is 
bounded by fir-clad mountains, the lower slopes of which are 
cultivated by the peasantry where cultivation is possible. The 
bottom lands are extensive, but are in large part marshy or 
stony, and inferior to the upland. The current of the Salzach, 
composed of gray glacier water, descends rapidly in its rocky 
bed, replenished all along its course by torrents falling from 
the mountains. Everywhere is heard the swash and gurgle of 
descending waters. 

About two hours' travel by Einspanner — all distances are 
measured by hours in this country — brings us to Uttendorf, 
near which an avalanche of mud slid into the valley in 1868, 
doing great damage. Opposite lies the Stubachthal, opening 
to the south, through which is disclosed a splendid view of the 
great Glockner ice-fields. An hour later we reach Muttersill, 
which is the principal village of the valley, and the seat of a 
district court established in an old castle upon an eminence 
five hundred feet above the river. In the neighborhood of 
Muttersill are some extensive swamps, and also a group of 
stony islands formed by the Salzach. The next notable point 
is Bramberg, near which rises to the height of nearly ten 
thousand feet the snow-crowned Kratzenberg, commanding an 
extensive view of the valley, up and down. A little farther 
is Neukirchen, opposite which yawns the deep, wild gorge of 
the Untersulzbachthal, out of whose dark fir forests a roaring 
cascade precipitates itself into the Salzach. Through the two 
Sulzbach ravines, — Unter and Ober, successively, — and that 
of the Habach, which just precedes them, some very fine views 
are disclosed of the immense ice-fields of the Gross Venediger, 
lying at a height of over twelve thousand feet. 

The road up the valley now shrinks to a mere bridle-path, 
crossed here and there by herdsmen's gates, which we are 
obliged to open ; the mountains close more and more darkly 
together, the horizon narrows, human habitations are seldom 

13* 



150 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

to be seen, and the echoing torrents roar wildly in their first 
unchecked tumult, as they pour down from unseen glaciers far 
above. As we round an abutting precipice, near which, at a 
crossing of the paths, a solitary weather-beaten crucifix lends 
its touch of sublime sorrow to the savage grandeur of the 
scene, the slender, green church-spire of Krimml comes into 
view, and far up the mountain behind it the upper cascade of 
the Krimmlerbach discloses itself, white as silver amidst its 
sable entourage of fir-trees. I say the upper cascade, for below 
the one in view are two more which cannot yet be perceived. 

Sitting in my room in the rustic Bachmaier inn, two hours 
later, I could see through my open window the same sheet of 
water, softly resplendent in the moonlight, and could hear its 
thunders echoing grandly among the silent mountains. It is 
truly a magnificent fall, — this of the Krimmlerbach, — one of 
the loftiest and most beautiful in the world. No more inter- 
esting study can be found in the Alps of the wild tumult of 
plunging waters. The torrent forming the fall has its source 
in the Krimmler Tauern glacier, which lies on the confines of 
the Gross Venediger, far back in the mountains, and is not 
visible from this valley. At all seasons a huge volume of 
water, it issues from a rocky gully known as the Krimmlerthal, 
and vaults into the valley of the Salzach over precipices of an 
agro-rebate height of one thousand feet. 

From Krimml a path meandering through the forests of the 
valley leads to the first cataract, from whence pedestrians may 
ascend to the top of the upper fall by a route made practicable 
for good climbers by the Alpine Club. After ascending about 
fifty feet by this route we obtain a complete view of the first 
fall, though not without a liberal douche from its great vol- 
umes of spray, through which the sunlight falls in brilliant 
prismatic colors upon the dark masses of fir-trees below. The 
descending sheet of water is by no means unbroken ; it does 
not fall smoothly and " without speed" like Niagara, but fumes 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 151 

and rushes as if possessed with the very demon of haste, and, 
striking upon projecting rocks, breaks into milk-white masses, 
veiling the lower torrent in mist. For some hundreds of yards 
above the lower fall the stream takes the form of a rapid, 
pouring through a narrow chasm. At the second cascade, 
which comes immediately above this rapid, the water glides 
about one hundred and fifty feet down a smooth and very steep 
inclined plane of rock. Another rapid of several hundred 
yards in length separates the intermediate cascade from the 
tipper one, which is a continuous fall of six hundred feet. In 
making this magnificent leap the water descends more smoothly 
than at the lower fall, but where it strikes its basin the draught 
and spray are such as permit no near approach. 

The three cataracts cannot be seen simultaneously except 
from the mountains opposite. In the early morning hours I 
clambered to the top of the upper fall, and loitered for some time 
under the cool shadows of the precipices beside its splendid 
torrent. The atmosphere was fresh, pellucid, and aromatic ; 
the light was favorable to clear and far perspective ; the for- 
ests were vocal with the song of birds ; the fleecy, throbbing 
volumes of spray shone in the sunlight with the brightness of 
silver ; and, in harmony with the scenic grandeur, the thun- 
derous voice of the cataract resounded like a deep-voiced 
morning orison. 

Quitting reluctantly, and with many pauses, a scene so in- 
spiring, I descended to Krimml, and, employing a guide, set 
out for Zell-am-Ziller. Mounting the steep pastures of the 
Plattenkogl, which slope down close to the village, we soon 
reached an altitude from which all the cataracts of the Krimm- 
lerbach could be seen, and the eye ranged down the Salzach 
Valley as far as Taxenbach. The view was magnificent, and 
grew steadily more so as we ascended. An hour's work 
brought us to a solitary hut occupied by a couple of Senners, 
barefoot, ragged, and unspeakably dirty. They tried to be 



152 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

hospitable, and offered us milk, but their filthy appearance 
made it impossible for me to partake. To conceal my scruples, 
I inquired as to the contents of a large kettle smoking in the 
fireplace, when one of the men, by way of explanation, raised 
a lever and, removing some coarse cloths, disclosed a large 
cheese, whose whiteness and apparent purity were in striking 
contrast with its grimy surroundings. " Das id Schweitzer- 
kcise" remarked the Senner in the broad brogue of Tyrol. He 
was evidently proud of his exhibit, and added : " Vielleicht 
haben Sie solchen im Bachmaier gegessen f I replied evasively. 
The thought that the cheese I had eaten at the Bachmaier 
and in various other country inns might have been the 
product of such unclean hands was not a pleasant one. What 
a contrast, I reflected, between this rude hut, with its un- 
washen inmates, and a Western Reserve dairy, with its shin- 
ing milk-pans, its pure spring water, and its trim, bright-eyed 
milkmaids ! 

We passed on, and in half an hour came to another hut, — 
the frontier one on this wild mountain. The sole occupant 
was a cow-herd, — a fearfully dirty fellow, who squatted motion- 
less in his den, and seemed ashamed to show himself to a 
stranger. We observed him dimly through the door of his 
domicile, my guide, who was evidently an old acquaintance, 
chatting with him familiarly. Milk was again offered me, but 
declined with thanks. 

Our course was now solitary and pathless. Very few way- 
farers go over . the Plattenkogl by this route, as may be in- 
ferred from Baedeker's references to such landmarks as " a 
dilapidated wooden pyramid," a crucifix, " two conspicuous 
firs," and " a withered pine stump." I spent much time try- 
ing to identify these objects, but without success except as to 
the pyramid, which was crowned with a wooden image of some 
saintly person, rudely carved. Without a guide I would have 
had serious difficulty in finding my way. 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 153 

From the summit, the valley of the Salzach, as seen in the 
foreground, with its velvety pastures, its variegated forests, the 
tiny village of Krimml, with its red spire, and the silvery 
cascades of the Krimmlerbach, forms a picture which it is 
worth travelling a long distance to see. Facing southward, 
and sweeping around the horizon from left to right, we behold, 
first, the long glacier-chain of the Krimmler Tauern, then, in 
the foreground, the white cone of the Reichenspitze, then the 
glaciers of the Wilde Gerlos, and finally, looking northward, 
the green mountains of the Zillerthal. 

Upon quitting the summit we descended towards the Gerlos- 
thal, a long, narrow, serpentine valley affording an outlet to 
the Wilde Gerlos glacier. The sloping meadows adown which 
our course lay seemed to be considerably higher than the 
glacier and its nev6 } both now in full view on the opposite side 
of the valley. At the timber-line, which we reached after an 
hour's sidelong descent, we struck an embryo trail, relying 
upon which, and upon my maps, I dismissed the guide, and 
pursued my way unattended down the solitudes of the chasm. 
In my note-book I find the following scrawl : 

" 2 p.m. — Opposite the Wilde Gerlos glacier. There is not 
a human being or habitation in sight. All is savage and soli- 
tary, and not a sound can be heard save the swash and roar of 
the glacier torrent." 

The beauty and majesty of the mountains were a continual 
feast to the eye and soul, but their silence and loneliness were 
oppressive. Nor do we find much in any part of this valley to 
soften its primitive wildness. From the Gerlos glacier down to 
Zell-am-Ziller is a walk of four hours amidst changeful scenes 
of Alpine grandeur as superbly wild as the most romantic 
nature could desire. The exudation of sulphur, or some kin- 
dred substance, from the rocks, has caused them to be streaked 
here and there with curious yellow bands, as if marked with 
some gnomic symbolism. As the valley descends, the path 



154 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

creeps up the steepening sides of the mountains, and the pro- 
found echoes of the brawling Gerlosbach are faintly heard 
amidst its dusky ambush of fir-trees at least two thousand feet 
below. Salvator Rosa would have delighted to paint land- 
scapes so abounding in fantastic savagery of crag and chasm, 
of giddy precipice, of sky-clambering forest, and of deep-voiced 
portentous torrent. 

The shades of evening were gathering when I looked down 
from a height at the lower end of this valley into that of the 
Ziller. An hour's descent from this eminence, by a villanous 
path, brought me to the hospitable Welschwirth, in Zell, whose 
plain but substantial comforts, enhanced by the gentle assiduities 
of a pretty young Wirthin, were most agreeable consolation 
for the day's fatigues. 

Of the journey down the Zillerthal not much is to be said. 
The valley is fertile, and presents some striking views, but 
with the scenery of the Gerlosthal fresh in my mind, that of 
the Ziller seemed rather tame. The people are more intelli- 
gent and vivacious than the Pinzgauers, and speak rather 
better German. They are intensely Roman Catholic, the em- 
blems of their faith being conspicuous in every public place, 
as well as in the privacy of their homes. The day being de- 
voted to some religious fUe, crowds of people in holiday attire 
were passed on their way to church, although the day before — 
Sunday — peasants of both sexes had been diligently harvesting 
in their meadows about Zell. 

The view up and down the valley of the Inn, as we emerge 
from the Zillerthal, is extensive and inspiring. The Brenner 
railway here follows the course of the Inn, its station nearest 
the mouth of the Ziller being Jenbach, a pretty village two 
hours by rail from Innsbruck. The iron and copper mines of 
the valley have caused extensive smelting-works and forges to 
be established at Jenbach. A silver mine was formerly 
worked at Schwaz, the next important station south, but, like 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 155 

the gold mine of the Gerlosthal, has been exhausted. Hall, 
the next considerable town as we go up the valley, derives 
prosperity from its salt-works, to which the brine is conveyed 
from extensive mines in the mountains, nine miles distant. 
Hall has historical fame as having been the scene of some of 
the must brilliant exploits of Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolese 
patriot and martyr. 

Innsbruck, the capital and chief city of Tyrol, lies in one 
of the widest and best portions of the valley, girdled by 
majestic mountain peaks rising to a height of ten thousand 
feet. This morning (September 10) the summits and upper 
sections of these mountains were dressed in a covering of 
freshly-fallen snow, making them appear as masses of brilliant 
white clouds against the sky. Upon sallying out, and seeing, 
as I turned a corner of the street, the vast silvery forms hang- 
ing over the city, I was, at first, completely deceived ; the 
cloud illusion was perfect. 

Travellers over the Brenner, from Munich to Milan, or 
vice versa, do well to break journey at Innsbruck, although 
the place is not to be recommended for a prolonged sojourn. 
It is exposed to violent winds, locally termed siroccos, which 
sweep down the gulches of the mountains and fill the streets 
with flying dust. According to the official barometrical 
tables, these winds prevail seventy-one days, upon the average, 
in the course of the year. The yearly average of rainy days 
is one hundred and twenty, of quite cloudy days sixty-seven, 
and of quite clear days only thirty-six. 

The curious old Franciscan church known as the Hof kirche, 
of Innsbruck, built in 1553-63, is an historical as well as re- 
ligious memorial of surpassing interest. Within its walls 
Queen Christina of Sweden, daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, 
renounced Protestantism and embraced the Roman Catholic 
faith while on her way to visit the Pope at Rome after her 
abdication. The centre and greater part of the nave of the 



156 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

church is taken up by the splendid monument to the Emperor 
Maximilian, executed by the emperor's own direction, in pur- 
suance of whose will the church itself was built. A kneeling 
figure of the emperor, in bronze, is supported by the massive 
marble sarcophagus, upon the four sides of which are carved 
twenty-four exquisite bass-reliefs, mostly by Colin, representing 
the principal events in Maximilian's life. These reliefs were 
declared by Thorwaldsen to be the most perfect of their kind. 
Around the sarcophagus, at an appropriate distance, stand 
twenty-eight colossal bronze figures in ruediseval armor and 
costume, representing members of the emperor's family, his 
contemporaries, and other historical characters, among whom 
are seen, enveloped in prodigious coats of mail, King Clovis of 
France; Philip I. of Spain; Theodoric, King of the Ostro- 
goths ; Godfrey de Bouillon, and, finest of all, King Arthur 
of England.* One of these mailed giants, intended to rep- 
resent Theodobert, Duke of Burgundy, has its face entirely 
concealed by a perforated pointed morion, giving it a most 
grotesque appearance. Among the statues of females are those 
of Joanna, Queen of Spain ; Bianca, Maximilian's wife ; 
Margaret, their daughter ; and Cunigunde, the emperor's 
sister. A quaint and curious group is this of kings, queens, 
and heroes, and though not of the highest artistic merit, yet, 
in its severe and majestic symbolism, profoundly impressive. 
The work is a memorial only, the remains of the emperor 
being interred at Wiener-Neustadt, on the Semmering Rail- 
way. 

On the left side of the church a relief in Tyrolese mar- 
ble designates the tomb of Andreas Hofer, the peasant hero of 
Tyrol, under whose brave and skilful leadership his country- 

* u The noblest," says Dr. Wilhelra Liibke, "are the statues of Arthur 
and Theodoric, executed in 1513. Their superb bearing, delicate propor- 
tions, and perfect execution (the last applying especially to the Arthur) 
prove them the work of Peter Vischer's hand." 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 157 

men so energetically, and for a time successfully, resisted the 
invasion of the French, Bavarians, and their allies in 1808-10. 
So able were Hofer's efforts, and in such esteem was he held 
by his people, that they finally recognized him as their civil 
and military governor, with his residence at the Schloss Tyrol, 
near Meran, where for a brief period he administered pub- 
lic affairs wjth great simplicity and tact. After the peace 
of Vienna he was betrayed into the hands of Napoleon, by 
whose order he was shot at Mantua. The remains of Has- 
pinger, a Capuchin monk, and of Speckbacher, a chamois- 
hunter, two faithful coadjutors of Hofer, lie beside his in this 
church. 

Meran, September 12. — At Innsbriick the Brenner Railway 
quits the valley of the Inn and ascends the mountains. Its 
ascent is continuous for'twenty-one miles, and culminates at a 
point four thousand four hundred and eighty-five feet above 
sea-level. The Brenner is the lowest of the celebrated Alpine 
passes, yet disappoints not the lover of mountain grandeur. 
Affording the most direct line of communication between 
Germany and Italy, it was known and used as a travelled high- 
way in the time of the Romans. The railway was constructed 
with less expense than that over the Semmering, chiefly because 
of the greater ingenuity employed by its builders in over- 
coming difficulties. There are twenty-three tunnels on the 
pass, two of which describe a curve. The scenery, as the train 
ascends the northern slope, grows wilder and grander as each 
successive point is rounded, developing splendid views of 
precipice, abyss, glacier and cascade, lofty peak and far-reach- 
ing valley. 

The most interesting part of the line is that on the southern 
slope of the mountain descending from the little station of 
Brenner, at the summit of the pass, to Gossensass at the bot- 
tom. The ingenuity with which the railway has been carried 
up the mountain on that side is not less striking than the 

14 



158 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

majestic scenery amidst which it meanders. After moving up 
the valley several miles from Gossensass, the train enters a 
curved tunnel eight hundred yards long, from which it emerges 
at a far higher altitude, on the same side of the valley, in 
the reverse direction from that in which it entered. Shortly 
afterwards the station Gossensass, quitted forty minutes before, 
reappears nearly six hundred feet below, and a magnificent 
display of Alpine grandeur bursts upon the vision. 

From Gossensass to Botzen, — going southward, — the line, 
descending rapidly, follows the course of the Adige, in whose 
narrow, sunlit valley the vegetation soon assumes a more 
southern character. Indian corn is extensively cultivated in 
this region, and the grape flourishes luxuriantly. The ex- 
tent of arable land is not great until Botzen is reached, when 
the valley expands into a wide, fertile •basin, encircled by por- 
phyry and dolomite mountains. In mediaeval times Botzeu 
was the principal commercial depot between Venice and the 
north • it is said to be still the most prosperous commercial 
town in Tyrol. Its climate is gentle, its summer skies dreamy 
and delightful, its neighborhood fertile, abounding in fruits 
and flowers, its population mixed, with a marked proclivity to 
the south. 

At Botzen I quitted the railway and set out by diligence 
for Meran, four hours distant. The road ascends the valley 
of the western branch of the Adige amidst vineyards, groves 
of chestnut- and mulberry-trees, fields of Indian corn, and ex- 
tensive pastures. The mountain scenery is not so bold and 
rugged as that of the Salzach, but the valley is highly pro- 
ductive, and abounds in fascinations for the eye. The retro- 
spect towards Botzen, with the conspicuous white peaks of the 
Rosengarten rising in the distance, is especially fine. A salient 
crag, or promontory, here and there along the course of the 
valley is crowned with a ruined castle, giving a touch of 
romance to the picture. Wine-growing being the leading 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. ] 59 

industry of the district, the lower slopes of the mountains 
are covered with vineyards, among and far above which the 
chalets of vine-dressers and herdsmen look down upon the 
more pretentious cottages of the peasant farmers in the valley. 
In the meadows, harvesters — mostly women — are at work 
gathering the third cutting of the season. 

When our diligence, carrying the regular mail as well as 
passengers, approached Meran, the shades of evening were 
gathering upon the mountains. The driver of the diligence 
carried a postman's bugle slung upon his shoulder, and as we 
nearecl the town he blew it vigorously. His was no random 
blowing either, but a kind of musical pot-pourri, — presumably 
selections from leading composers. Spurring his team — 
three horses abreast— into a vigorous trot, he skilfully manip- 
ulated the reins with one hand and his bugle with the other. 
Passing vehicles, of which there were many, caused him no 
trouble ; they deferentially gave him the road. Entering the 
old town at a reckless gait, we enjoyed a kind of ovation, as, 
with accompaniment of echoing bugle-notes and clattering 
hoofs and wheels, we deftly rounded one street corner after 
another, and finally drew up in front of the post-office amidst 
a throng of admiring loiterers and expectant hotel servants. 

Meran is the ancient capital of Tyrol. On a spur of the 
neighboring mountains stands the Schloss Tyrol, once the 
residence of the reigning princes, but now a scarcely habitable 
ruin. The views from the windows of its dilapidated chapel 
overlook the falls of the Adige, and extend for a distance of 
twenty miles up and down the luxuriant valley of Meran, 
bounded on the one side by a chain of porphyry mountains, in 
billowy forms, and on the other by precipitous dolomite cliffs. 
The name Tyrol is derived by the countries bearing it from 
this historic castle. 

From the heights surrounding it no less than twenty other 
castles of the olden time look down upon Meran. One of 



160 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

these, known as the Zenoburg, stands on the summit of a per- 
pendicular* crag, along the base of which brawls the tumultu- 
ous Passer. Nothing remains of the ruin but the chapel and 
a huge four-cornered tower, said to have been built by Drusus, 
in the year 16 B.C., as a means of protection to the Roman 
colony in the valley. Another curious old ruin is that known 
as the Schloss Planta, the shattered and decaying towers of 
which are completely overgrown with ivy from base to sum- 
mit. Some of the other castles, as, for instance, the Schloss 
Rametz, give names to the excellent and widely-known wines 
of the neighborhood. The dry, equable climate of this valley, 
and its sheltered position, are very friendly to the vine, which 
flourishes in great luxuriance on the sunny slopes of the beau- 
tiful mountains round about Meran. The same conditions 
have made this a favorite resort for pleasure-seekers and 
invalids. The prosperity which Meran lost when it ceased to 
be the capital of Tyrol has been fully regained since it became 
popular as a Kurort. The combined attractions of its "grape- 
cure," its cheerful atmosphere, and its splendid scenery now 
bring hither from nine to twelve thousand visitors annually. 
The town is a queer old place, with some fine parks and 
promenades, and one long, narrow street, with low arcades, 
which protect pedestrians from sun and rain. 

The robust peasants of this and the Passeyer valleys wear a 
very striking costume, comprising a short, brown jerkin, with 
scarlet trimmings, worn over a green vest ; a handsomely-em- 
broidered belt, and a broad-brimmed pointed hat. The color 
of the hat-band, if the wearer is unmarried, is red, and if 
married, green. The men wear the usual short trousers, leav- 
ing the knees bare. 

St. Moritz, Engadine, September 14. — At Meran I 
hired an Einspanner, and set out for the Stelvio. Within a mile 
or two after quitting the town, the Austrian military road 
passes an old castle, then ascends by a winding course to a 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. \Q\ 

commanding elevation, which affords a very fine retrospect of 
Meran, with its lowland and mountain environments. The 
Adige, forming near this point of observation a series of cas- 
cades descending among huge masses of detached rock, reap- 
pears in the distant valley below, meandering amidst luxuriant 
fields and groves of walnut and chestnut. The skies, on that 
fine September morning, had a delicate Italian tint, the at- 
mosphere was clear and refreshing, and the vineyards were 
empurpled with heavy, ripening clusters. 

Continuing westward, the road ascends steadily, — making 
progress, in fact, up the general slope of the Rhsetian Alpine 
range, the loftiest in Austria. The valley, of variable width, 
and locally known as the Vintschgau, lies between chains of 
mountains of great height, whose summits, at this season, are 
covered with snow. Hundreds of brooks and rills, the waters 
of which are cold as ice and bright as sunshine, rush down 
from the heights, feeding the ear continually with their babble. 
Occasionally the road crosses the dry and rocky bed of a 
mountain torrent which, though temporarily extinct, has 
marked its course with impressive evidences of its force and 
fury. The Austrian government, which built this highway 
for military purposes, and maintains it as a post-road, keeps it 
in excellent condition. It is broad, smooth, well-macadam- 
ized, and of easy grade. Trees planted on either side serve 
an excellent purpose, both for ornament and for shade. 

There are numerous villages in this valley, but they do not 
look attractive. The houses are huddled together with desper- 
ate economy of space, leaving barely street-room enough for 
vehicles to pass by. The stable garbage, carefully saved for 
fertilizing purposes, is usually banked up against the dwell- 
ings, or near them, to await decomposition. Cows, swine, and 
poultry apparently enjoy about the same social privileges as 
other inhabitants of the village. If pestilence never prevails 
in such communities, the light, invigorating atmosphere and 
I 14* 



162 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

the pure water, gushing from the mountains, must be its 
preventives. 

Between Meran and Eyrs we find ourselves in the current of 
English summer travel. The route from St. Moritz over the 
Bernina and Stelvio to Botzen, and thence to Innsbruck, or 
from the Stelvio to Nauders and thence back, up the Inn Val- 
ley, to St. Moritz, is a favorite one with the English. The 
entire circuit can be made in four or five days, taking in much 
of the finest scenery in Tyrol. The season being now pro- 
pitious, — the best of the year for this kind of travel, — a great 
many English birds of passage are on the wing, looking very 
aristocratic in their two- and four-horse vehicles, — they disdain 
the comfortable little Einspdnner, — piled with prodigious heaps 
of luggage. 

Another class of wanderers we meet are of the opposite ex- 
treme. They are gypsies and other vagrants, whose effects are 
carried in dog-carts drawn mostly by women. Vagrants are 
vagrants the world over, but it is a very shocking novelty to 
an American to see the sex he is accustomed to revere harnessed 
to a heavily-laden vehicle, and tugging like a mule in the 
traces. In a country where the image of woman deified in the 
person of the Virgin invites adoring homage at every turn of 
the road, there is special incongruity in the spectacle of woman 
actual and mortal, bare-legged, bare-armed, scantily clothed, 
with a strap around her shoulders and another about her waist, 
hitched sometimes beside a man and sometimes beside a dog, 
pulling and sweating along the dusty highway. We Americans 
do not worship woman's effigy quite so much as they do here, 
but we honor and respect woman herself a great deal more. 

From Meran to Eyrs the distance by Einspdnner is about 
eight hours. Visible from Eyrs, but about one hour farther 
on, lies the village of Brad, at the foot of the Stelvio Pass. 
On a steep mountain slope beyond and far above Brad, a row 
of cottages perched on the steep mountain slope like swallows 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 163 

on the roof of a barn, is known as Stilfs, or Stelvio, the village 
from which the famous pass takes its name. At Eyrs the road 
turns squarely to the left, and after crossing the Adige and a 
series of wide marshes, enters at Brad the narrow gorge of the 
Trafoibach, which here forms several fine cascades as it pre- 
cipitates itself into the valley. Rising from Brad, the road 
mounts by bold, graceful windings the left side of the gorge, 
disclosing at every turn the enormous difficulties which its 
construction encountered and overcame. The Stelvio wagon- 
route, reputed to be the loftiest in Europe, doubtless deserves 
its reputation as the most wonderful in the world. The mag- 
nificent scenery which it displays and the skilfulness of its 
construction alike command our admiration every foot of the 
way from Brad on the one side to Bormio on the other. The 
road, built by the Austrian government, chiefly for military 
reasons, in 1820-25, is wide, smooth, substantial, and, even in 
its most difficult parts, of easy grade. The bewildering zig- 
zags and graceful curves by which it mounts from the depths 
of tremendous abysses, and rounds the giddy verge of mighty 
precipices, strike the beholder with admiring wonder. From 
one point I could count no less than twenty-four vast, stair-like 
flexures in the road, above and below me. 

The height of the Stelvio may be appreciated by comparing 
it with the altitude of some of the other principal Alpine 
passes. The highest point on the St. Gothard, practicable for 
wheels, is 6936 feet above sea-level ; on the Simplon, 6595 
feet ; on the Spliigen, 6946 ; on the Bernina, 7658 ; on the 
Furca, 7992 ; on the Stelvio, 9045. The snow never entirely 
melts away on the summit of this pass, and at the present time 
(September 20) it lies six to eight feet deep by the roadside. 
At the top are the vast glaciers and snow-fields of the Ortler 
group, at the bottom the luxuriant vineyards and mulberry 
groves of the Val Tellina. At many places, particularly on 
the southern slope, it has been necessary to protect the road by 



1(34 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

covered galleries from avalanches, some of which, started 
thousands of feet above it, now lie in huge heaps of dirty, 
melting snow a thousand feet or more below. At other places 
rocky barriers otherwise impassable are tunnelled, and appal- 
ling chasms are spanned by lofty and graceful arches of masonry. 
Miles on miles of heavy stone revetments have been built to 
protect the road from descending debris, or to prevent the 
road-bed itself from sliding down the mountain. Yet constant 
labor and watchfulness are necessary to prevent obstructions. 
The upper part of the mountain, on the north side, consists of 
slaty rockiof loose texture, from which particles are constantly 
falling whenever their frosty anchorage is relaxed by the heat 
of the sun. 

After about an hour's ascent from Brad, we pass, on the 
opposite side of an abysm, the mouth of the Suldenthal, a nar- 
row and profound cleft in the range, from which the Sulden- 
bach, the efflux of the Sulden glacier, dashes forth. This valley, 
very wild and seldom visited, extends back into the heart of 
the Ortler district, containing the highest mountains in Aus- 
tria, and rivalling the grandest scenery of the Swiss Alps. 
Half an hour beyond the Suldenthal we reach Trafoi, a moun- 
tain hamlet, from whence upward the scenery is of the 
subliinest description. Taking a backward look some hun- 
dreds of yards above Trafoi, I beheld, far — yet seemingly not 
far — across the Adige Valley, the vast snowy pyramid of the 
Weisskugel, one of the highest of the Oetzthal Alps, rising 
amidst the most extensive glacier-field in Tyrol. A few 
paces farther on, as I resumed the ascent, Monte Livrio, over 
ten thousand feet high, disclosed itself, more dazzling white 
than the milk-white clouds which lingered about its shapely 
cone. Directly an additional turn of the road brought into 
view a whole panorama of splendid mountains, from the great 
Ortler plateau on the left to Monte Cristallo on the right, all 
enveloped in eternal snow. In the foreground rose to the 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 165 

height of over eleven thousand feet the black wall of the 
Madatsch, a huge mass of bare and almost perpendicular rock 
which protrudes from the Ortler ice-field, bearing an immense 
glacier upon either flank. Looking down upon these glaciers 
from the windings of the road, we hear far in the gorge below 
the deep, fiercely-solemn roar of the waters which come out 
of them. 

The sun was just setting from a cloudless sky as this mag- 
nificent scene burst upon my vision. For some minutes the 
silvery peaks in the foreground were flushed with delicate 
rose-color, which disappearing with the sun's rays, they 
changed to lily whiteness. Far to the northward the bare 
gray summits of the Oetzthal Mountains were immersed in 
delicately-tinted floods of fading light, which changed all their 
savagery to gentleness and likened them to the hills of Para- 
dise. So serene were they, and so lovely, that the imagina- 
tion instinctively invested them with the attributes of a 
heavenly revelation, — a realm of purity peopled with happy 
spirits. 

Night was closing in when I reached Franzenshohe, a soli- 
tary post-station about an hour and a half from the summit. 
The beautifully-rounded peak of the Ortler, the highest moun- 
tain of the Eastern Alps, here first came into view, displaying 
its spotless white form, smooth as polished alabaster, con- 
spicuous even in the starlight. The atmosphere was nipping 
cold ; frost sparkled on the ground, and snow lay upon the 
roof of the inn, a few yards from which a large bank of last 
year's snow-fall yet remained unmelted. 

Early next morning I set forward again, mounting some- 
times by short-cut paths, and sometimes by the marvellous 
zigzags by which the road makes its way up the precipitous 
side of the range. A two hours' walk of this kind brought 
me to the summit, where, on the very crest, lies the boundary 
between Austria and Italy. Here all was solitary, savage, and 



166 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

sublime. A few stray chamois skipping over the ice-fields to 
the southward were the only signs of animal life to be seen. 
Heaps of last year's snow, packed until almost as hard as ice, 
lay near the road. A cold, searching wind swept over the 
pass, making vigorous exercise necessary for comfort. Partly 
as a means of relief from the cold, and partly to obtain a 
wider view than that from the road, I climbed some hundreds 
of feet to the summit of a rocky height, from whence a 
stupendous panorama of the Swiss, Austrian, and Italian Alps 
was disclosed. The vast, tumultuous expanse of cloud-swept 
snow-fields, wrinkled glaciers, rocky sierras, snow-enshrouded, 
peaks and dark abysses, all wrapped in the silence of primeval 
solitude, was unspeakably grand. 

The descent from this wintry scene to Bormio, a sheltered, 
sunny watering-place on the Italian side, abounds no less in 
sublime scenes and surprises than the ascent on the Austrian. 
From Bormio, reached at mid-day, I continued the descent by 
the Val Tellina, arriving by nightfall at Tirano, from 
whence — after dark — I pushed on by Einspanner to Poschiavo, 
a delightful Swiss village at the foot of the Bernina. Taking 
a guide, I began, early next morning, the ascent of the pass by 
a foot-path from which the whole scope of the valley could be 
seen, embracing the pretty village and lake of Le Prese, a 
favorite summer resort of the Milanese. Beyond Tirano the 
view was bounded by an imposing range of Italian snow- 
mountains. An ascent of two hours brought us to an ex- 
cellent point for observing the magnificent Palii glacier, lying 
fully exposed on the opposite side of the deep, narrow valley 
into which it descends. This glacier, discharged from the 
enormous ice-fields above and beyond it, falls by successive 
gradations resembling gigantic stairs, its dark, beautifully- 
curved moraine lying upon its crest, and outlining its course, 
like the knotted spine of an immense crocodile. While we 
were observing its ice-fall, heavy thunderous sounds issued 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 167 

from it, as though great masses of ice were tumbling and 
crashing somewhere within its cavernous interior, though no 
external movement could be seen. 

An ascent of two hours from this point brought me to the 
hospice at the summit of the pass, where some parties of Eng- 
lish tourists were nooning. The hospice stands opposite the 
Cambrena glacier, and is used as a summer hotel, said to be the 
highest — not in prices but in altitude — in the Alps. A young 
lady who sat next to me at the table d'hote impatiently re- 
marked, while waiting for her dinner, that if the people of 
the house didn't serve their guests more promptly, they would 
have an opposition hotel in their neighborhood pretty soon ! 

Between the hospice and the glacier lie two beautiful little 
lakes, one of them of a delicate light-green color, and the other 
a very dark blue. The difference in color is accounted for by 
the fact that the light-colored lake is formed from glacier water 
and the dark one from springs. Both are solidly frozen over 
from the first of November till the middle of June. The 
narrow strip of rocky ground which separates these lakes 
forms the water-shed between the Black Sea and the Adriatic. 

Jaded from exposure to the heat of the sun on the southern 
slope of the mountain, I took an Einspcinner at the hospice for 
St. Moritz. The road, descending into the valley of the Inn, 
was a most admirable one; the atmosphere was cloudless and 
crystalline, the scenery superb. " How bright and how blue 
is the sky !" I said to my Kutscher as we spun along at a rat- 
tling trot down the beautiful grade. " Yes, and how near !" 
he replied, in his Romansch accent. Verily, the heavens seem 
to be not far away in this lofty, taintless altitude of the Enga- 
dine. The frost-time, too, is never remote. " Nine months 
winter and three months cold" is the phrase with which the 
people characterize their climate. 

As we approached the pretty village of Pontresina, at the 
foot of the pass, the Morteratsch glacier, with its huge moraine 



163 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

and its roaring torrent pouring from a spacious archway of 
ice, magnificently disclosed itself, lying in its vast mountain 
saddle, environed by snow-covered peaks, glittering in the 
evening sun. An hour later we reached St. Moritz. 

The region known as the Engadine, or upper valley of the 
Inn, lies from five to six thousand feet above sea-level. The 
valley, seldom more than a mile in width, is bordered on both 
sides by lofty mountains, upon the tops of which rest some of 
the largest glaciers and perpetual snow-fields in Switzerland. 
The atmosphere — so clear that objects can be distinctly seen at 
a great distance — is singularly tonic and invigorating; the skies 
are intensely blue, the seasons about the same as those of 
Northern Sweden or Finland. So short and cool are the 
summers that tillage is limited to small patches of oats and 
rye and some wretched potato-fields. The temperature seldom 
rises above 76° Fahrenheit in the shade, and snow and frost 
frequently occur in August. Owing to the scarcity of straw 
the cattle are littered in winter with dried pine cones, moss, and 
long, coarse marsh grass. Only the hardiest varieties of 
timber, such as the larch and Siberian pine, grow upon the 
mountains, but the valley produces grass luxuriantly, and in 
summer resembles a continuous meadow. So dry is the at- 
mosphere that meat may be preserved from October to May 
without salt, and the cold, often at 30° below zero in winter, 
is borne without serious discomfort. 

The inhabitants of the Engadine are enterprising, thrifty, 
and intelligent. In the pursuit of certain trades for which 
they have a special aptitude, they travel to all parts of Europe 
and acquire wealth, to enjoy which they return to their native 
valley. Their religion is Protestant almost exclusively, their 
government a pure democracy, their language the Romansch 
corruption of the Latin. They take great pride in their dwell- 
ings, which look exceedingly tidy with their gilded lattices, 
and windows — made small to keep out the cold — dressed with 



AMONG THE AUSTRIAN ALPS. 1(59 

snowy draperies and an abundance of flowers which, even at 
this frosty season, bloom profusely in the dry, stimulating at- 
mosphere. Coming thither from Italy, and even from the 
fertile and beautiful Val Tellina, the stranger cannot fail to be 
impressed with the superior evidences of popular taste, pros- 
perity, and comfort. 

St. Moritz, the highest village in the Engadine, lies over 
six thousand feet above sea-level. There are several ways of 
reaching it, but probably no favorite summer resort in Switzer- 
land is so difficult of access. The nearest railway point is 
Coire, from whence a journey of fifty miles must be made by 
diligence or by carriage over the Julier Alp. Another line 
of approach is that from Coire by way of Chiavenna and the 
Splugen, or from Innsbruck via Nauders, — a four days' drive 
up the valley of the Inn. These are routes from the north. 
Travellers from Italy — that is to say, from Milan — may come 
by way of Lake Como and the Val Bregaglia, or up the Val 
Tellina to Tirano, and then over the Bernina Pass, which is, 
perhaps, the easiest and pleasantest route of all. But whatever 
may be the line chosen, a long ride by diligence or carriage, or 
its less expensive and far more agreeable substitute, an invigo- 
rating foot-tour up and down the mountains, is unavoidable. 

The hotels of St. Moritz are crowded with strangers, mostly 
English. The British aristocracy is represented in all its 
grades, from members of Parliament and the blue-blooded 
nobility down to high-toned green grocers. " Lauter English" 
said a solitary German to me in a mournful tone. The dining- 
hall of the Hotel Kulm, which is large enough to seat several 
hundred persons, is crowded at the table d'hote. This evening, 
while we were at dinner, the electric lights failed, leaving the 
entire company in total darkness. " II y a quelque chose de- 
rangee" explained the waiters while they hurriedly brought 
in lamps and candles. " Toujours quelque chose derangee" ob- 
served a disgruntled Frenchman. 
h 15 



170 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

About one hundred and fifty feet below, and directly oppo- 
site the village, lies the pretty lake of St. Moritz formed by the 
clear waters of the Inn, which courses through it. At the 
head of the lake are the bath-houses and some large hotels. 
The springs supplying the baths are strongly chalybeate, and 
said to be very beneficial in certain classes of ailments. Per- 
haps much of the healing effect attributed to the waters is really 
due to the invigorating climate, particularly the bright, pure 
atmosphere and low temperature which invite and enforce 
physical exercise. Out-door life in this valley is a luxury, and 
no one remains here long without acquiring a ruddy, or, as 
an English lady expressed it to me, an " underdone/' appear- 
ance. The mountain-climber has here a veritable paradise, 
while the less ambitious sportsman finds equal delight among 
the crystal lakes formed among the green meadows by the 
meandering; current of the Inn. 



CHAPTER XII. 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 



September 15. — Left St. Moritz at 6 a.m. for Chiavenna 
and Colico. An Englishman contested my right to the interieur 
seat in the diligence which I had paid for. As he had nine 
points of the law in his favor — that is to say, possession — and 
I had nothing but a bit of pasteboard, I took my place in the 
Beiwagen, or supplementary carriage. My complaisance was 
rewarded, for the carriage was much more comfortable than the 
crowded diligence ; besides, I had a gentleman for company. 

The morning was clear and brilliant, but cold. We had an 
exhilarating drive up the valley, coursing beside the Silvaplana 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 171 

and Silser Lakes, with a deep-blue sky overhead and majestic 
mountains on either hand. Passing by the sources of the 
Inn, we ascended the Maloja, which forms the water-shed be- 
tween the Inn and the Meva, and from the summit, while the 
diligence halted for a few minutes, we enjoyed a fine view 
down the valley into which we were about to descend. We 
then mounted our vehicles again, and whirled away at a rapid 
gait down the mountain, by a zigzag course. By this time I 
had been assigned to another Beiicagen, and was so fortunate as 
to have for my travelling companion an English gentleman 
who was familiar with the country. Seeing that I was inter- 
ested in the scenery, he kindly invited me to take his place, 
which afforded a better view than the seat I occupied. 

The descent from the frosty regions of the Engadine, with 
their glaciers, perpetual snow-fields, and hardy vegetation, to 
the sunny precincts of the Meva, where rhododendrons grow 
side by side with the mulberry and the chestnut, was a most 
interesting transition. Passing through a rocky gallery called 
La Porta, the road leads, in the course of a few hundred 
yards, from the one zone of vegetation to the other. At 
Castasegna we reached the Swiss-Italian boundary, and were 
obliged to show our baggage to the Italian douaniers. As 
usual, the principal article searched for was tobacco, and upon 
proffered demonstration that the forbidden weed did not exist 
in my luggage, they turned from it with indifference. 

We reached Chiavenna about noon. Here the stage road 
comes down from the Spliigen, and we made a vehicular 
change which brought me again into English company, — 
that of a family occupying one of the Beiwagen. The passen- 
gers arriving from the upper Alps by the two routes filled 
eight or ten diligences and carriages, making quite a caravan. 
The drive to Colico was tedious, dusty, and not at all inter- 
esting. There were mountains and mountains, both near and 
far, but they were scant of vegetation, and seemed tame and 



172 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

jejune in comparison with the Alpine scenes of Switzerland 
and the Tyrol. In the lowlands we passed numerous fields of 
Indian corn, which elicited from one of my stranger companions 
the naive observation that the seed of this plant, as he had 
been informed, was useful for food. 

Arrived at Colico, on Lake Como, about the middle of the 
afternoon, and there took a steamer, in waiting, for Como. 
Reached Como at sundown, and Milan, by rail, two hours 
later. 

Milan, September 17. — In Milan I have been most im- 
pressed, — 1, by Leonardo's painting of the Last Supper ; 2, 
by the same master's head of Christ, in the Brera ; 3, the 
cathedral; 4, the Cavour monument; 5, Raphael's Sposa- 
lizio. I place the painting first because it is the most inter- 
esting object in Milan. If any work is entitled to be called 
the masterpiece of modern painting, it is this. Leonardo, 
whose marvellous genius produced it, was born at the Vinci 
palace, near Florence, in 1452, and died in 1519. His life 
covers the period of the early renaissance, — a golden era in 
Italian art. The close of his career was the beginning:; of 
Michael Angelo's, Raphael's, and Titian's. Like Michael 
Angelo, he was not a painter only, but a sculptor, an archi- 
tect, and an engineer, as well. " Learned in mathematics, 
physics, astronomy, anatomy, and natural history ; a good 
musician, making verses with the facility of an improvisatoire, 
writing well on every subject which interested him, expert also 
in all the exercises of strength and skill, he was pronounced 
an universal genius, ( all powerful in everything.' " (Viardot.) 
Before this continent was discovered the great achievements 
of his life were begun, yet they are as pre-eminent to-day as 
they were four centuries ago. He was not profuse in his 
painting, like Rubens or Titian, but what he lacked in 
quantity he more than redeemed in concentrated power. He 
painted as Macaulay wrote, and Parepa sang, apparently with- 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 173 

out effort, but really with the most patient and painstaking 
effort. He spent four years on his superb portrait of the wife 
of his Florentine friend, Giocondo, — the Mona Lisa of the 
Louvre, — yet still regarded that work as unfinished. 

The Last Supper occupies an end wall in the refectory 
of the suppressed monastery of Santa Maria delle Grazie, until 
recently used as a cavalry barrack. The apartment, bare and 
dismal, is as inappropriate as possible to be the repository of 
such a treasure. An unimportant fresco of the crucifixion on 
the opposite wall is much better preserved than Leonardo's 
work, which has suffered alike by neglect, abuse, and decay. 
Although, in the sixteenth century, the Dominicans were re- 
proached by Cardinal Borromeo for their gross neglect of this 
precious picture, they cut a door through the wall beneath it, 
taking away the legs of Christ and those of the disciples near- 
est Him. The room is so badly lighted, and the entire work 
is in such a dilapidated condition, that good eyesight and 
much patience are necessary for anything like a just perception 
of its merits. The picture retains comparatively little of its 
original beauty of color, but its grouping and drawing are yet 
distinct enough to be appreciated, and they are superb. The 
individuality and appropriateness of the figures are wonderful ; 
we accept them intuitively as correct ideals, — yea more, they 
seem to us to be portraits of the actual apostles, taken from life. 
So correct and real are these types of character — so completely 
harmonious with the sacred narrative — that to the whole 
Christian world they have become historical verities rather 
than works of the imagination. 

Two groups of three apostles each, drawn with surpassing 
art, are placed on either side of the Divine Master, — a stroke 
of genius which accentuates His as the dominant presence. 
The antitheses of character displayed in these groups, says Dr. 
Liibke, are innumerable. They are seen " iu the expression 
of the heads, in the movement of the drapery, and, above all, 

15* 



174 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

in the physiognomy of the hands." The emotions which agi- 
tate the company have been produced by the Master's words, 
just spoken, " One of you shall betray me." The apostles are 
deeply moved, as each one shows by action suited to his tem- 
perament ; the sinless One alone is calm and resigned. Sad- 
ness, deep but tranquil, is seen in every lineament of His 
countenance. The downcast eyes, the noble head slightly 
bowed, the opened palms extended and resting on the table, all 
denote unspeakable pain borne with heavenly submission. 
There is no trace of weakness; His companions obviously are 
but men, with the frailties of men, but the Master is humanity 
perfected. The type of His manhood is that of neither Jew 
nor Gentile; it is universal. The ideal is faultless. Mrs. 
Jameson does not at all exaggerate when she says of it, — ■ 

" The intellectual elevation, the fineness of nature, the benign, 
Godlike dignity suffused with the profoundest sorrow in this 
divine head surpassed all I could have conceived as possible 
in art ; and, faded as it is, the character there, being stamped 
on it by the soul, not by the hand of the artist, will remain 
while a line or hue remains visible. It is a divine shadow, 
and, until it fades into nothing and disappears utterly, will 
have the lineaments of divinity." * 

* Mrs. Jameson's description of the details of the picture leaves noth- 
ing to be added. She says, " Next to Christ is St. John ; he has just 
been addressed by St. Peter, who beckons to him that he should ask ' of 
whom the Lord spake;' his disconsolate attitude as he raises himself to 
reply and leans his clasped hands on the table, the almost feminine sweet- 
ness of his countenance, express the character of this gentle and amiable 
apostle. Peter, leaning from behind, is all fire and energy; Judas, who 
knows full well of whom the Saviour spake, starts back amazed, overset- 
ting the salt ; his fingers clutch the bag, of which he has the charge. His 
face is seen in profile, and cast into shadow ; without being vulgar, or 
even ugly, it is hateful. St. Andrew, with his long gray beard, lifts his 
hands, expressing the wonder of a simple-hearted old man. St. James 
Minor, resembling the Saviour in his mild features and the form of his 
beard and hair, lays his hand on the shoulder of St. Peter, — the expression 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 175 

A small crayon study for the head of Christ in the Last 
Supper is seen in the Brera Gallery. Like the completed 
masterpiece, it exhibits melancholy evidences of abuse and 
neglect, yet its defaced condition is not wholly out of keeping 
with its eloquence of unmerited sorrow. The features, radiantly 
intellectual, and expressive of the most delicate sensibility and 
elevated manhood, are wan with suffering. The Christ of the 
Last Supper has passed the first shock of His foreseen be- 
trayal, and has entered the comparative calm of controlled and 
submissive sorrow ; but here we have rather the deep anguish 
and heart-break of inconsolable grief, — the acute agony of a 
guileless, patient, affectionate soul, which has received a remedi- 
less wound. Of all the heads of Christ I have yet seen, not 
excepting that of the Last Supper this is the most pathetic. 
In Guido's heads the eyes are lifted in agonizing appeal, as if 

is, ' Can it be possible ? have we heard aright ?' Bartholomew, at the 
extreme end of the table, has risen from his seat ; he leans forward with a 
look of eager attention, the lips parted; he is impatient to hear more. 
On the left of our Saviour is St. James Major, who has also a family re- 
semblance to Christ; his arms are outstretched, he shrinks back, he repels 
the thought with horror. The vivacity of the action and expression are 
wonderfully true and characteristic. St. Thomas is behind St. James, 
rather young, with a short beard ; he holds up his hand, threatening, — ' If 
there be indeed such a wretch, let him look to it.' Philip, young, and 
with a beautiful head, lays his hand on his heart ; he protests his love, his 
truth. Matthew, also beardless, has more elegance, as one who belongs to 
a more educated class than the rest ; he turns to Jude and points to our 
Saviour, as if about to repeat His words, ' Do you hear what He says ?' 
Simon and Jude sit together (Leonardo has followed the tradition which 
makes them old, and brothers) ; Jude expresses consternation ; Simon, 
with his hands stretcned out, a painful anxiety. . . . Leonardo has con- 
trived to break the formality of the line of heads without any apparent 
artifice, and without disturbing the grand simplicity of the usual order; 
and he has vanquished the difficulties in regard to the position of Judas 
without making him too prominent. He has imparted to a solemn scene 
sufficient movement and variety of action, without detracting from its 
dignity and pathos; he has kept the expression of each head true to its 
traditional character, without exaggeration, without effort." 



176 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

to a source of help and consolation ; but here they are down- 
cast, as though the sufferer bore His burden alone. The face is 
noble and soulful, winning the heart at first sight, and its ex- 
pression is indescribably touching. The Master Himself, it 
seems to me, were He to choose, would prefer this among all the 
pictures of Him which men have painted. 

A room adjoining that in which Leonardo's crayon is hung 
contains Raphael's Sposalizio, or Marriage of the Virgin. It is 
one of the master's earlier works, and is called the gem of the 
Brera collection. 

Among the marble statues of scholars and scientists in the 
court of the Brera Palace is Canova's nude figure in bronze 
of Napoleon I. as a Roman emperor. The adulation implied 
in representing Napoleon in such a character may be par- 
doned, but not so the emperor's complete destitution of cloth- 
ing, or drapery, which imparts to the work, in spite of its 
plastic merits, an air of weak, almost ridiculous, affectation. 

Quite the reverse in this respect — a model of simplicity and 
appropriateness, as well as a work of high artistic merit — is 
the bronze statue of Count Cavour, by Tabacchi, erected in 
the piazza at the entrance to the public gardens. The statue, 
supported by a massive granite pedestal, represents Cavour as 
we would imagine him to have appeared when addressing the 
assembled diplomatists of Europe, or the first parliament of 
united Italy. Sublime in its simple manliness, it stands 
alone, — 'majestically alone, — except that below it the reclining 
figure of Clio, goddess of history, inscribes with a stylus the 
statesman's name upon the enduring granite. How much 
better this simplicity than the wearisome ostentation of many 
figures and emblems, requiring long explanations ! 

Bologna, September 17, 18. — Raphael's St. Cecilia, more 
than anything else, brought me here, and it alone has abun- 
dantly rewarded me for coming. Few things in legendary 
art approach, and still fewer transcend, the exquisite beauty 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 177 

of the Cecilia. With upturned eyes the pure-hearted saint 
listens, in a transport of adoring rapture, to the music of the 
celestial choir. Her features, not inherently beautiful, are 
transfigured with divine ecstasy. In her hands she holds the 
Pandean pipes, significant of her function as the patroness of 
music ; in like significance various musical instruments lie 
strewn at her feet. On her right, supporting his left hand 
and right elbow on a sword, and his chin in his open hand, 
stands St. Paul, — a grand figure, — wrapped in sublime medita- 
tion. His draperies are a red robe and green tunic. On the 
left, her face turned towards the spectator, stands Mary Mag- 
dalen, in blue and red. The nobly-born St. Cecilia is robed 
in garments of orange-colored brocade. Nearer to her than 
St. Paul, or Mary, with their eyes bent upon her luminous 
face, stand St. John and St. Augustine, the one on the right, 
the other on the left. The coloring and drawing of the pic- 
ture are Raphael's, in his best style, — more need not be said. 
But the superb art of the work is only adjunct, as it should 
be, to its spiritual expression, which radiates from it like a 
divine efflux, — a veritable apocalypse of the heavenly world. 

Next to the Cecilta, the most important work in the Bo- 
logna Gallery is Guido Reui's Crucifixion which is one of 
that master's finest productions. The elements of horror so 
conspicuous in Rubens' s treatment of the subject are wanting, 
but there is nothing lost by the omission. Though destitute 
of revolting extremes, the picture is profoundly truthful and 
impressive. 

The sculptures in the Campo Santo, at Bologna, are in high 
repute, but I found them inferior, as a class, to those of like 
character at Genoa, which are probably unsurpassed. 

September 19. — By rail to Florence. The watercourses 
crossed by the railway are almost dry, making their heavily- 
arched bridges seem superfluous. 

Florence, September 20. — Visited Giotto's frescos in the 



178 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Santa Croce, and Michael Angelo's sculptures in the new 
sacristy of San Lorenzo ; then went to the Uffizi and refreshed 
my recollection of its principal paintings and sculptures. Met 
in the new sacristy a Brooklyn clergyman, whom I had en- 
countered in Germany a fortnight before. He was on his way 
to Palestine. Drove once more to the San Miniato for the 
sake of the view it affords of Florence and its environs ; then 
went to see the original— in marble — of Michael Angelo's 
David. The statue was placed, temporarily, in a dark and 
narrow shed, where it could not be viewed with much satis- 
faction. 

September 21. — Returned by rail to Milan. 
September 22. — Revisited the cathedral and ascended to 
its roof, from whence, in clear weather, Mont Blanc, the Great 
St. Bernard, Monte Rosa, the Matterhorn, the Mischabel, and 
the peak of the Ortler are all visible. The roof itself is well 
worthy of a visit ; it is an architectural wonder. Over it rise 
ninety-eight Gothic turrets, each surmounted by the statue of 
some celebrated person. Over two thousand statues, in all, 
adorn the exterior of the building. The upright finials on the 
cresting and flying buttresses of the roof are cut at the ends to 
resemble roses, and each one, it is claimed, although there are 
thousands of them, represents a rose of a different species. 

The interior of the cathedral has but one serious defect, — its 
painted imitation of stone tracery on the ceiling. The de- 
ception is skilfully executed, but the eye is impatient of any 
sham in architecture which is otherwise so perfect and so 
splendid. The more intense our delight in its truth and 
reality the more intolerant we are of any attempt at dissimu- 
lation. 

The evening light was streaming grandly into the magnifi- 
cent aisles when I last quitted them. Nothing so transfigures 
one of these great cathedral interiors — so fires its fretted vaults 
and hallowed emblazonry with sublime suggestions — as its 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 179 

illumination by the sun's rays. Yet the architects seem to 
have studied to exclude the sunbeams rather than to admit 
them. The interior of the huge Duomo, at Florence, is so 
sombre that even at mid-day its bass-reliefs are vague and its 
statues spectral. 

One of the most attractive places in Milan* is the Victor 
Emmanuel Gallery, — a mammoth trading booth enclosing the 
street space, in the form of a cross, between the cathedral square 
and that of the Scala. It is three hundred and twenty yards 
long, is roofed with glass, at a height of ninety-four feet, and 
has, at its centre, a cupola rising to the height of one hundred 
and eighty feet. The wall panels and niches of the gallery 
are adorned with frescos and with statues of celebrated 
Italians. The frescos on the cupola represent Europe, Asia, 
Africa, and America ; those on the entrance arches are em- 
blematic of Science, Industry, Art, and Agriculture. In the 
evening the gallery is magnificently illuminated, and with its 
gay bazaars, and throngs of promenaclers and shoppers, pre- 
sents an animated picture of Milanese life. 

September 23. — By rail from Milan to Arona, and thence 
by boat to Baveno, on the Lago Maggiore. Dined in a garden 
by the lakeside, and at 4 p.m. quitted Baveno by Einspanner 
for Domo d'Ossola. A lovelier evening never was seen. The 
weather was superb, the scenery poetic as an Arcadian dream. 
Descending into the diffracting atmosphere of the hill-sides and 
lowlands, the mellow light tinged cliff and valley — rock, 
grove, and vineyard — with ethereal violet, and was dissolved in 
the rippling lake into myriad tints of delicate, luminous color. 
As we bent our course towards the mountains, the retrospect 
of the lake, the circling, vine-clad hills which slope down to 
its brink, and the Borromean Islands, was unspeakably beauti- 
ful. I could not turn my eyes away from it as long as a 
glimpse of it remained. 

The luxuriant valley along which we pursued our way from 



180 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

the lake was planted with maize fields, olive groves, and vine- 
yards, mingled with plantations of fig- and chestnut-trees. On 
a mountain side was seen the granite quarry from which were 
obtained the majestic columns, twenty-three feet in height, 
which support the aisles and transept of the Basilica of St. 
Paul (Fuori le Mura) near Rome. The granite of this locality 
is noted for its beautiful felspar crystals. Farther on, near 
the village of Ornavasso, the mountain-side quarries appear 
from which was taken the marble used in building the Milan 
Cathedral. At dark we reached the pretty town of Dorno 
d'Ossola, the first important post and diligence station south 
of the Simplon. 

September 24. — Left Domo d'Ossola by diligence at 6 a.m. 
Weather perfect. I was so fortunate as to obtain a banquette 
seat, — outside the diligence, — the very best for enjoying the 
scenery. 

The road over the Simplon is one of the finest existing 
monuments of the energy and genius of the first Napoleon. 
Begun on the Italian side in 1800, and on the Swiss side in 
1801, it was completed in six years, at a cost of about four 
million dollars. Its construction was resolved upon by Napo- 
leon after the battle of Marengo, in order that he might have 
a great military road into Italy. He was very impatient for 
its completion, and is said to have inquired constantly, " Quand 
le canon pourra-t-il passer au Simplon f" Next to the Brenner, 
the Simplon was the first great highway over the Alps. 

Ascending the fertile and thoroughly Italian Val d'Ossola, 
the road crosses the Diveria by a bridge one hundred feet in 
height, penetrates by a gallery the sequestered ravine of Varso, 
and mounts the Lepontine range by successive engineering 
triumphs amidst scenes of transcendent grandeur. On no 
other of the great passes have I been so profoundly impressed 
with the beauty and sublimity of the Alps as on this one. As 
we approach the ravine of Gondo, the mighty walls of rock, 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 181 

rising on both sides to a height of two thousand feet, close to- 
gether, and seem to terminate the road. Apparently we are 
caught in a mountain cul-de-sac, — an illusion not dispelled until 
we pass a projecting crag, where a roaring cataract, rushing 
from the heights above, startles us like a wild beast in am- 
bush, and plunges, in frantic escape, into the sombre depths 
below. Crossing this torrent by a slender bridge, we enter the 
gallery of Gondo, — a tunnel two hundred and forty-five yards 
in length, — from which we emerge into the ravine of Gondo, 
whose smooth, precipitous walls of mica slate completely over- 
hang the road. This ravine — a gorge of the brawling Diveria 
— is one of the wildest and grandest in the Alps, surpassing 
even the famous Via Mala of the Spltigen. 

We reached the Seventh Refuge, in the Engeloch, at 1.30 
p.m., and passed the old hospice, a weather-beaten, lonely ruin 
on the old trail, some hundreds of feet below the present road. 
At 2.10 p.m. we arrived at the new hospice, on the summit. 
It is a large, plain, prison-like building, with massive walls 
and windows made small to keep out the cold. The entrance 
is approached by a lofty flight of stone steps. The establish- 
ment, founded by Napoleon for the accommodation of belated 
wayfarers, is under the management of Augustinian monks 
from the monastery of St. Bernard, to which it now belongs. 
Strangers are entertained without charge, but are expected to 
contribute to the poor-box at least as much as the usual com- 
pensation for what they receive. 

Near the hospice rises the magnificent peak of Monte Leone, 
which attains a height of nearly twelve thousand feet. Various 
other snow-covered peaks, with glaciers lying between, sur- 
round a broad basin constituting the highest part of the pass. 
Winter prevails here from eight to nine months of the year, 
preventing the growth of any vegetation except the hardy 
Alpine rose. 

The descent on the northern side, unfolding a continuous 

16 



182 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

panorama of stupendous Alpine glories, was an incomparable 
experience. As we approached the Sixth Refuge, a magnificent 
view of the Bernese Alps and the intervening Rhone Valley 
was disclosed. The vast ice-field of the Oberland, with its wintry 
desolation, its tremendous abysses, its sky-piercing, snow-covered 
peaks, burst suddenly upon the vision. Directly opposite, and 
seemingly near, although ten or fifteen miles distant, " that 
noblest of ice-streams, the Great Aletsch Glacier," was seen de- 
scending " from its birthplace in the mountains." As seen from 
the Simplon, this glacier appears nearly as Professor Tyndall 
describes it, as viewed from the Eggischhoru, on the opposite 
side of the Rhone : " Its arms are thrown round the shoulders 
of the Jungfrau, while from the Monk and the Trugberg, the 
Gletscherhorn, the Breithorn, the Aletschhorn, and many an- 
other noble pile, the snows descend and thicken into ice. The 
mountains are well protected by their wintry coats, and hence 
the quantity of debris upon the glacier is comparatively small ; 
still, along it can be noticed dark longitudinal streaks, which are 
incipient moraines. Right and left from these longitudinal 
bands sweep finer curves, twisted here and there into complex 
windings, which mark the lamination of the subjacent ice. The 
glacier lies in a curved valley, the side towards which its con- 
vex curvature is turned is thrown into a state of strain, the ice 
breaks across the line of tension, a curious system of oblique 
glacier ravines being thus produced." 

Largest of the Alpine glaciers, the Aletsch displays nearly 
the whole extent of its graceful curvatures — fifteen miles — as 
we descend the Simplon. Around the huge cradle in which it 
lies rise, like sentinels, scores of stern, cloud-defying peaks, 
including many of the loftiest and most celebrated in Switzer- 
land. Professor Tyndall's description of this panorama, as he 
saw it from the Eggischhorn, affords an excellent idea of its 
appearance from the Simplon : 

" Jungfrau, Monk, Eiger, Trugberg, cliffy Stahlgrat, stately, 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 183 

lady-like Aletschhorn, all grandly pierce the empyrean. Like 
a Saul of mountains, the Finsteraarhorn overtops all his 
neighbors ; then we have the Oberaarhorn, with the riven 
glacier of Viesch rolling from his shoulders. Below is the 
Marjelen See, with its crystal precipices and its floating ice- 
bergs, snowy white, sailing on a blue-green -sea. Beyond is 
the range which divides the Valais from Italy. Sweeping 
round, the vision meets an aggregate of peaks which look, as 
fledglings to their mother, towards the mighty Dom. Then 
come the repellent crags of Mont Cervin, the idea of moral 
savagery, of wild, untamable ferocity, mingling involuntarily 
with our contemplation of the gloomy pile. Next comes an 
object scarcely less grand, conveying, it may be, even a deeper 
impression of majesty and might than the Matterhorn itself, — 
the Weisshorn, perhaps the most splendid object in the Alps. 
But beauty is associated with its force, and we think of it, not 
as cruel, but as grand and strong. Farther to the right is the 
Great Combin ; other peaks crowd around him ; while at the 
extremity of the curve along which the gaze has swept rises 
the sovran crown of Mont Blanc." 

The road descends by a winding course, with precipices on 
the left, to look over which makes the flesh creep. So great is 
the danger on this part of the line during the period of ava- 
lanches and storms, that six houses of refuge and a hospice have 
been built within a distance of three miles, and the road is 
covered in many places with galleries to protect it from de- 
scending masses of snow. Passing through one of these 
galleries we hear, the roar of a glacier torrent overhead, and 
through an aperture in the side we perceive the cataract which 
has rushed over us falling into the abyss below. 

Looking back after a descent of ten miles, we perceive, once 
more, the glacier near which the road reaches the summit of 
the pass. We then continue our downward course by mazy 
windings amidst green meadows, and at 4.15 p.m. arrive at 



134 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Brieg, the terminus of the Rhone Valley Railway, which it is 
now proposed to carry under the Simplon range by a tunnel 
nine or ten miles in length. 

Realizing the importance of making the most of the good 
weather while it lasted, I pushed on by the evening train to 
Visp, and from thence, at sundown, set out with a horse and 
guide for St. Niklaus. Night overtook us before we reached Stal- 
den, in the Vispthal, and when we entered the narrow gorge of 
the Nikolaithal the darkness became intense. The vast shadowy 
forms of the mountains which rose on either hand concealed 
the starry firmament all but a narrow strip, and were sepa- 
rated from one another by huge belts of abysmal darkness, 
which the eye could not pierce. We felt our way along, rather 
than perceived it, ascending and descending by paths so steep 
that it was sometimes necessary for me to dismount. All was 
silent except the low moaning of the night wind among the 
pines, and the roar and swash of torrents which we could not 
see. After some hours of this kind of travel, a light twinkled 
out of the pitchy gloom ahead of us, and my guide remarked, 
" Dq, 1st St. Niklaus." Half an hour later we reached the vil- 
lage, where I dismounted at the inn, a plain frame building 
pretentiously named the Grand Hotel. 

September 25. — Set out at 6 a.m. for Zermatt. From Visp 
to St. Niklaus the only thoroughfare is a bridle-path, but from 
St. Niklaus a rude wagon-road leads on up the valley. My 
guide of yesterday insisted importunately that I should hire 
his conveyance, — a small springless wagon, — but I was de- 
termined not to forego the luxury of walking, on that radiant 
morning, the twelve miles which lay between me and Zermatt. 
The skies were cloudless, the atmosphere invigorating, the 
scenery magnificently grand. The Nikolaithal lies between 
the two segments of an enormous glacier field shaped like a 
horseshoe, with its opening towards the north. The western 
segment extends out from the Matterhorn, the eastern from 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 185 

Monte Rosa. Between the two, at the head of the valley 
where the segments close together in a prodigious range, 
crowned with perpetual ice and snow, lies Zermatt. The 
segmentary ranges, as well as the connecting one, — from the 
Matterhoru to Monte Rosa, — include many of the loftiest 
mountains and most gigantic glaciers in Switzerland. At 
Zermatt, as nowhere else, we are at the very heart of the 
Alpine world. 

It was about 10 o'clock a.m. when, rounding a rocky eleva- 
tion which the road passes below Zermatt, I saw for the first 
time the stupendous wedge of the Matterhorn. On its left, 
extending to the Breithorn, lay the vast snow-field of the 
Theodule glacier, rising like a white wall against the sky. 
In the foreground, comprising the lowlands which terminate 
the valley, lay the village of Zermatt. Just beyond the 
village a bridle-path, rising at first through meadows, and then 
through a belt of beautiful larches and Alpine cedars, ascends 
to the chalet seen on the ledge of the Riffelberg, three thousand 
feet above the plane of the valley. Beyond the larches the 
path mounts a steep and stony ridge, from which the huge 
ice-fall of the Gorner Grat glacier is seen bursting through its 
abysmal gate-way in the valley below, on the right. This 
glacier, descending from the northern shoulder of Monte Rosa, 
and carrying with it the tributary currents of ten other glaciers 
all squeezed into one narrow defile, winds around the Riffel- 
horn like an immense snake. Its length is nine miles, and its 
movement twenty to thirty inches per annum. 

At one o'clock I reached the chalet, having walked twelve 
miles besides the ascent of the mountain. For a time my 
strength seemed exhausted, but an hour's rest and an Alpine 
dinner of bread and milk prepared me for the ascent of the 
Gorner Grat, a rocky ridge which rises eighteen hundred feet 
above the Riffelberg chalet, and nearly five thousand feet 
above Zermatt. The summit of the Grat was gained about 

16* 



186 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

three o'clock. I was entirely alone, — not a living soul could 
be seen. There was no sound except a deep-toned, muffled 
rumbling heard occasionally in the direction of the Schwarze 
glacier, as if some huge ice-mass were grating on its bed. 
Clear around the horizon extended the vast amphitheatre of 
peaks, glaciers, and perpetual snow-fields, the grandest, perhaps, 
in the world. Monte Rosa alone was disappointing ; snow- 
white and gracefully formed, it is yet not so imposing as 
when seen from the Italian side. To its right rises the huge, 
craggy mass of the Lyskamm, from whose ledges wild ava- 
lanches are often precipitated. Between Monte Rosa and the 
Lyskamm lies a wide valley, into which both mountains pour 
their accumulations of snow, forming the Grenz glacier, in 
magnitude a rival to the Gorner. To the right of the 
Lyskamm are seen two pointed peaks of spotless whiteness 
and smooth as enamel. They are known as Castor and 
Pollux, and form the farther boundary of an immense neve, 
from which the Schwarze glacier descends along the eastern 
wall of the huge, ungainly Breithorn. Continuing to the 
right, the eye ranges over the snow-fields of the Theodule 
glacier to the Matterhorn, against whose southern wall a mass 
of cloud clings, caused by contact of the moist wind, blowing 
up the valley, with the colder stone of the mountain. Around 
the base and far up the sides of the Matterhorn lie enormous 
deposits of snow, from which the Furggen and other glaciers 
derive their ice-currents. Turning northward, on the western 
segment of the range, we behold the peaks and glaciers of the 
Gabelhorn, the Rothhorn, and last of all the Weisshorn, re- 
garded by Professor Tyndall as " the noblest of all the Alps." 
Along the range on the opposite side of the Nikolaithal the 
eye strikes the majestic peaks of the Alphubel, the Allalein- 
horn, and the Mischabel^ including the Dom, which is one of 
the grandest of the Alps. 

While I was absorbed in admiration of this glorious scene, 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 187 

a couple of English pedestrians — a lady and gentleman — 
joined me on the Grat. I had descried them with my glass 
some time before, meandering, alpen-stock in hand, around the 
base of the Riffelhorn. During the conversation which we 
naturally fell into, madame informed me that she was now 
making one of her usual annual tours afoot among the moun- 
tains of that vicinity. All the peaks, glaciers, and passes of 
the neighborhood seemed to be familiar to her. Referring to 
some inquiry of mine about the St. Theodule Pass, which 
crosses the snow-fields east of the Matterhorn, she remarked 
that the day before she had come over that pass, from the 
Italian side, on foot ! The summit of the pass, nearly eleven 
thousand feet above sea-level, is covered with perpetual 
snow. 

In all the vast panorama seen from the Gorner Grat, the 
Matterhorn is the most unique and interesting as well as the 
most conspicuous object. Its isolation, altitude, form, and the 
tragic event with which its name is associated, conspire to 
make it the cynosure of all the Alps. Its height, variously 
stated, is not much short of fifteen thousand feet. Seen from 
the Eiffel, and from Zermatt, it appears to be a solid, smooth 
pyramid of rock, yet there are horizontal surfaces on its sides, 
which, upon near approach, extend away like plains. Corroded 
by the frosts and storms of ages, it sheds nearly every day 
tons of loosened rock which roll down its sides, yet so 
enormous is its mass that even centuries of such loss would be 
scarcely perceptible. Seen from the Val Tournanche, on the 
Italian side, its entire face rises like a series of terraced walls. 

Until 1865 no human foot had pressed its flinty, lightning- 
seared summit. In August, 1860, Professor John Tyndall 
and Mr. F. V. Hawkins attempted to scale its highest pinna- 
cle, and,failed. In August, 1862, Tyndall, accompanied by 
his favorite guide, Bennen, made another attempt, and gained 
a point almost within a stone's throw of the summit, but was 



188 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

compelled by appalling risks and difficulties to turn back. 
Other unsuccessful attempts to scale the mountain were made 
by Edward Whymper, in 1864. On the 14th of July, 1865, 
Mr. Whymper, starting from Zermatt, attempted for the ninth 
time to gain the summit, and was, at last, successful. He was 
accompanied by Lord Francis Douglas (aged nineteen), Rev. 
Charles Hudson, Mr. Hadow, and three guides. During the 
descent Hadow slipped, the connecting rope broke, and 
Messrs. Douglas, Hudson, Hadow, and a guide named Croz 
fell from precipice to precipice to the Matterhorn glacier, 
nearly four thousand feet below. The body of Douglas was 
never recovered; the others were found next morning, and 
buried in the church-yard at Zermatt. Three days after this 
calamity a party of four guides reached the summit from Le 
Breuil. During the summer of 1868, Professor Tyndall, ac- 
companied by two guides, — Joseph and Pierre Maquignaz, — 
made a third and successful assault upon the mountain. " On 
our attaining the summit," says Tyndall, " a fog from Italy 
rolled over us, and for some minutes we were clasped by a 
cold and clammy atmosphere. But this passed rapidly away, 
leaving above us a blue heaven and far below us the sunny 
meadows of Zermatt. The mountains were almost wholly un- 
clouded, and such clouds as lingered among them only added 
to their magnificence. The Dent d'Erin, the Dent Blanche, 
the Gabelhorn, the Mischabel, the range of heights between it 
and Monte Rosa, the Lyskamm, and the Breithorn, were all 
at hand, and clear ; while the Weisshorn, noblest and most 
beautiful of all, shook out a banner towards the north, formed 
by the humid southern air as it grazed the crest of the moun- 
tain." 

Charmed by the solitude, — magnetized by the sublimity of 
the scenes around me, — I lingered on the summit of the Grat 
long after my chance companions had left it. As evening 
approached, I began the descent, but a side path which seemed 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 189 

to lead directly down to the glacier beguiled me into an at- 
tempt to reach it. After following this path for half an hour, 
I found myself no nearer the glacier than before, and again 
set out for the RifFelberg chalet. Ou the summit of the 
Kirfelhorn stood what appeared to be the figure of a man, as 
if observing my movements. It was nothing, as I afterwards 
learned, but a pile of stones, said to be magnetic. Both the 
Grat and the Riffelhorn are huge magnets, — made so, it is 
believed, by lightning. 

By the time I had regained the main path, the sun was 
setting, and the exhibition of commingled light, color, and 
shadow upon the peaks, glaciers, and snow-fields was un- 
speakably grand. Every few steps I was obliged to halt and 
note some new and startling phenomenon in the magnificent 
diorama. No other day that I have ever been permitted 
to see died so gorgeously as that 25th of September on the 
Gorner Grat. While the sunbeams lasted, the heavens were 
violet at the zenith, gold, purple, and crimson around the 
horizon. The more exposed peaks were glowing pyramids ; 
glaciers and snow expanses upon which the strongest light fell 
seemed to be fairly aflame ; huge masses of naked rock, color- 
less and sombre at noontide, burned as if with inward fire. 
Belts of shadow, green and dark, drawn along the illuminated 
parts, made the light and color seem stronger by contrast. As 
the sun relaxed its power the more brilliant hues were softened 
to a delicate flush on the snow surfaces, which changed to 
rayless, pearly white of intensest purity, as the last glowing 
beam departed. 

As I approached the chalet I was met by an American, — a 
Philadelphia physician, — who said he had come up from Zer- 
matt during the afternoon, and at first intended to push on up 
the Grat, but had concluded to postpone the ascent until to- 
morrow. I retired soon after the evening table d'hote, intend- 
ing to make an early start for Visp, and was awakened at 



190 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

dawn by the dripping of water from the eaves of the chalet. 
Looking out, I perceived that the atmosphere was thick with 
fog and the ground white with freshly-fallen snow. Such is 
the fickleness of Alpine weather ; glowing and gorgeous at 
sunset, it had changed before sunrise to dismal winter. All 
the glorious scenery was veiled in dripping cloud ; not a 
mountain or a glacier could be seen. My American friend 
was disconsolate. " What a fool I was ; why didn't I go up 
yesterday !" he soliloquized. 

Amidst a cold, cheerless drizzle, I walked down to Zermatt, 
and there took an Einspdnner for St. Niklaus. The drizzle 
changed to rain, which poured down steadily all the way. At 
St. Niklaus I resumed the journey on foot, and after a three 
hours' walk in the rain arrived at Visp, where I caught the 
up- train for Brieg. Early next morning I set out by diligence 
for the Rhone glacier and the Furca, intending to descend, 
via Andermatt and Goschenen, to Fliielen and Lucerne. The 
weather continued sunless and misty as we left Brieg. The 
mountains were veiled far down by masses of cloud, under the 
skirts of which, as we advanced up the valley, was seen a 
virgin drapery of freshly-fallen snow. Our course, keeping 
company with the brawling torrent of the Rhone, and ascend- 
ing rapidly, brought us in the course of the forenoon into an 
atmospheric zone where the rain and mist of the morning 
changed to snow. The farther and higher we went the more 
violently the storm raged. The damp snow-flakes, coalescing 
in their descent, came down in chunks, and clung in masses to 
every resisting object. The dark-green pine- and cedar-trees 
on the mountain sides were changed by it to the color and 
semblance of sheeted apparitions ; telegraph poles by the road- 
side were overthrown by its weight upon the wires ; the dili- 
gence rolled heavily through its accumulating depths. Some- 
times the poles had to be removed before we could pass by, 
our conductor not hesitating to cut the wires when necessary 



FROM SUN TO SNOW. 191 

to ' facilitate a passage. The villages of this valley are never 
very attractive ; in such weather they looked dismal indeed. 
At one of these, during a brief halt, we encountered some Eng- 
lish tourists turning back towards Brieg. The storm, they 
said, had spoiled all their plans. 

We arrived at the inn near the Rhone glacier — Wirtshaus 
im Gletsch — about 2 p.m. The storm had by that time be- 
come terrific, and the air was filled with driving snow, flying 
almost horizontally before the wind. The conductor, as he 
opened the door of the diligence for us to alight, announced, 
" Messieurs, la diligence ne va plus loin. Elle partira a trois 
heures pour Brieg." 

Indeed ! The diligence would proceed no farther, but at 
three o'clock would set out for Brieg ! I could hardly think 
of going back, and sought a guide to accompany me on foot, 
over the Furca Pass. 

" No guide will go with you, sir," said the portier of the inn. 
" The snow lies on the road over the pass six feet deep." 

Further inquiry only confirmed these declarations. " You 
cannot get over," was the unvarying answer; "no guide will 
go with you." There was no help for it; I must go back to 
Brieg, or wait indefinitely for the storm to end and the snow 
to pack. Through the thickly-flying snow-flakes I discerned, 
faintly and wistfully, the road ascending like a corkscrew the 
cliffs far above us. I tried to perceive also the beautiful ice- 
fall of the Rhone glacier, but that was impossible ; the air was 
too thick. 

The return trip to Brieg was a cheerless, monotonous, down- 
hill ride, lasting far into the night. During the greater part 
of it I was the only occupant of the cold and dismal diligence. 
Next morning I quitted Brieg for Lausanne. 



192 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 

" I AM going to explore some of the wildest glacier regions 
of Tyrol," I said to a young American friend, " and if you 
care to join in the expedition, I would be glad to have you 
meet me at the Hotel de l'Europe, in Innsbruck." 

He readily accepted the proposition, and our plan and date 
of meeting were arranged. On the day and at the very hour 
agreed upon we each arrived at the place appointed, he coming 
over the mountains, on foot, from Munich via Partenkirchen 
and Zirl, and I from Vienna via Gmiinden, Ischl, and Worgl. 
Our expedition was not arranged in all its details, but was 
planned to carry us over the principal passes and glaciers of 
the Stubaier and Oetzthaler Alps. 

The city of Innsbruck lies at the most easterly point of a 
nearly equilateral triangle of which the Innthal (Valley of 
the Inn) is the base and the Oetzthal and Stubaithal are the 
sides. At the contiguous sources of the two valleys last 
named lies one of the most extensive ice-fields in the whole 
Alpine region. It is an immense expanse of glittering glacier 
and bare, weather-beaten rock, where animal and vegetable life 
almost cease, and where all is silent save the thunder of the 
cataract and the wild revelry of the storm. Cleaving this 
field in all directions are minor valleys and abysses, out of 
which the glacial torrents pour, and up the steep sides of which 
the hardy cedars and larches of the Alps stubbornly struggle, 
but which even they are finally obliged to yield to the absolute 
dominion of perpetual ice. Such were the regions which we 
two were seeking to explore, intending to behold with our own 
eyes, if possible, their rarely-visited solitudes and mysteries. 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 193 

Setting out from Innsbruck, on a fine afternoon in August, 
we soon reached, and began to scale, the rocky confines of the 
valley, by a winding road which leads up — or rather up to — 
the Stubaithal. Our conveyance was a Stellwagen, the primi- 
tive mail-carrying stage of Tyrol. As we ascended from one 
lofty plane to another, along the western incline of a profound 
defile, the Brenner railway lay far below, on our left, writhing, 
so to speak, in the first stages of its prodigious struggle with 
the Alpine heights. Far behind us, in the broad, distant 
valley, lay Innsbruck, its roofs and pinnacles receding and 
dwindling more and more with each advancing mile. In 
front, always " so near and yet so far," rose the massive wall 
of the Solstein, its symmetrical cone terminating in a shapely, 
solitary peak which proudly pierced the sky. To the right 
the Sailerspitze reared its rugged crest. Between these giants 
the Stubaithal, first seen from a commanding point on the 
road, lay before us in far-reaching vista, its upper portion 
fading into softly-shaded outlines, blue, dim, and vapory. 
Along its varying course its meadows were speckled with 
white-walled cottages and hamlets, upon which the rude 
chalets of mountaineers and herdsmen looked down from its 
rocky slopes. 

The post-road, rough and rustic, continued as far as Vulp- 
mes, a mining town, with iron-works, where the Stellwagen 
finished its course, and we began our pedestrian tour. Shoul- 
dering our light packets, — our heavier ones had been sent 
roundabout by mail, — we pressed cheerily forward, joined by 
two young Saxons, from Leipsic, who were also spending their 
vacation in the pursuit of Alpine adventures. All went well 
enough for the first hour or two, but meanwhile the thickening 
vapor, at first distantly seen and scarcely heeded, had crept 
steadily down the valley, which now became suddenly over- 
cast, and drenched with torrents of rain. One of us had ex- 
perienced just such violent precipitation in the mountains of 
in 17 



194 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Western Virginia, while campaigning with Fremont, and had 
slept in such storms with no roof, and nothing but a gum 
blanket and some fence rails for a bed ; but the experience of 
the other and younger of us had not so well prepared him for 
the present adverse turn of affairs. 

Neustift, the point we were aiming for, described by Baedeker 
as " the last village in the valley with a church," had been 
descried before the rain came on, but as night fell, the storm 
increased, and we trudged along shoe-top deep in water, and 
no village or sign of one could be seen, we began to conclude 
that Neustift, instead of being on the confines of Christendom, 
must lie beyond its pale. At length, just as the tempest and 
the darkness had reached their climax, we ran square up against 
Neustift — if I may so speak — and were immediately welcomed 
to the substantial comforts of a Tyrolese country inn. 

In every such well-ordered hostelry in Tyrol the stranger 
is met at the threshold by a handsome, sprucely-dressed Fraulein, 
of lively humor, whose business it is to dish up things, and 
help weary and moody guests to make themselves comfortable 
and cheerful. In return for her smiles and little attentions, ■ 
Fraulein receives from each appreciative beneficiary a few 
kreutzers of pin-money, some words of compliment, and a 
good-by pinch of her rosy cheeks, after the fashion of the 
country. All of which brings to mind the fact that my young 
companion, who quickly forgot his discomfort from the storm 
when Gretchen began to serve the hot victuals, had stopped 
the night before at a peasant's chalet, where the family, 
as usual, were piously Catholic. When bedtime came, the 
Fraulein, whose business it was, arose in her place and began 
repeating a family prayer. The stranger, not apprised of 
what was going on, supposed he was being addressed, and, 
turning to the maiden, inquired in his politest German, " Wie 
beliebt ?" — What do you wish ? Intensely amused at the oddity 
of the inquiry, Fraulein broke down in her devotions and 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 195 

tittered aloud. Her stern parent endeavored to sober her with 
his severest frown, but it was no use; in a moment the sup- 
pressed laughter broke out all round the family circle, and 
there was no more chance for solemnity on that occasion. 

Among our fellow-guests was a young German advocate 
from Munich, also making a vacation tour in the mountains, 
and intending to take the same route which we had planned. 
He was not at all discouraged by the storm ; on the contrary, 
he was sure the weather on the morrow would be wunderschon, 
for he was a member of th.e Alpine Club, and had news that 
the barometer at the Dresdener Hiitte — one of the Club's 
stations — on the Bildstockl Alp indicated the most favorable 
condition of the atmosphere that could be desired. A bright 
sunrise seemed to justify this optimism. There were some 
sinister clouds in the sky, phlegmatic and slow-moving, but they 
had very bright silver linings which folded over on the edges, 
giving assurance of no end of sunshine if only the lumpish 
masses of vapor would get out of the way. 

We were off betimes, leaving the guides to pack up and 
follow. The valley narrowed rapidly ; the road degenerated 
into a rough and crooked trail. The mountains on both sides 
were of great height and very steep. At Ranault, the last 
hamlet, the valley branches and begins to assume the savage 
aspect peculiar to the upper Alps. While we were halting to 
observe the scenery a short distance beyond Ranault, a Tyrolese 
peasant came along, and inquired in his peculiar German 
whether we had noticed the herd of chamois feeding on the 
cliff overhead. Immediately we brought our glasses to bear 
in the direction suggested, and saw about two dozen of the 
shy little creatures grazing in a strip of meadow not less than 
three thousand feet above us. Consciously secure at their great 
altitude, they moved about, one by one, leisurely nipping the 
herbage among the rocks. 

An hour's walk farther on we were obliged to seek refuge 



196 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

in the huts of some cow-herds from a sudden cloudburst. The 
rain, brief though violent, was quickly succeeded by sunshine. 
The dismal huts, windowless and filthy, in which we had 
taken shelter were the last signs of human habitation in the 
valley ; beyond them a short distance the lateral ranges closed 
together, forming a gigantic barrier of rock, adown which a 
roaring torrent poured, formed by the glaciers far above. In 
the course of ages this torrent had worn its way into the solid 
ledges, forming a narrow chasm, out of the dark depths of 
which issued the subdued reverberations of the fretted waters. 
No other sound was heard in this solitude save the wild cry 
of an occasional marmot disturbed by our approach. Some 
beautiful striations made by ancient glaciers were observed on 
the bare surface of the rock as we ascended the range. In 
some places the exposed strata exhibited, as distinctly as 
though it were the work of yesterday, the smoothing and 
grooving done by descending masses of ice, which must have 
slid over them ages on ages ago. Thus Nature writes history, 
in characters enduring, unmistakable, and so simple that a 
child can understand them. 

At four o'clock in the afternoon we reached the Dresdener 
Hiitte, at the foot of the glacier. This hut, in which we pro- 
posed to pass the night, is one of many such which have been 
erected by the Austro-German Alpine Club for the benefit of 
tourists on the wild mountain passes of Tyrol. These rude 
hostelries are provided with plain chairs and tables, stoves and 
utensils for cooking, mattresses and a few bed-coverings. 
They are kept in order by the licensed guides, who are cus- 
todians of the keys, and carry up the necessary fuel. Our 
first care was to examine the barometer, of the favorable indi- 
cations of which our young Munich friend had spoken in such 
a burst of enthusiasm. The indications were indeed favorable, 
so far as the aneroid was concerned, the index of the instru- 
ment having been permanently adjusted by the last occupants 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 197 

of the hut. The atmospheric symptoms were not quite so en- 
couraging. A fire built by the guides in the chimney of the 
hut soon caused a general rush for the door. The smoke all 
came down instead of going up, and our cooking proceeded 
under difficulties. Until supper was ready, those of us not 
pressed into culinary service took observations of the weather, 
and of the scenes of solitude and rocky, ice-bound desolation 
round about us. The atmosphere was nebulous and chilly, 
and the sun went down amidst gloomy shadows. The fatigues 
of the day made sleep grateful, even upon the stony floor of 
the hut. 

We resumed the ascent at daybreak. The cold, uncom- 
fortable at first, was quickly forgotten in the exercise of clam- 
bering over the moraine. The glacier was reached in half an 
hour, and then the snow-field, seemingly boundless, in mount- 
ing which we moved in Indian file, about ten feet apart, lashed 
to one another by a rope. I was not long in finding a spot 
where a thin, deceptive covering of snow concealed a pit to 
which there was no perceptible bottom. Fortunately the cleft 
was narrow, and the result of the fall was nothing more serious 
than a slight bruise. The neve, becoming steeper and more 
yielding as we ascended, lay like a white sheet let down from 
the sky between us and the apex of the Joeh, whose smooth, 
snow-covered ridge, polished by the wind, seemed delusively 
near. By steady plodding we gained the ridge at 7 a.m., and 
stood upon the crown of the range known as the Bildstockljoch, 
about eleven thousand feet above sea-level. A strong wind, 
bitterly cold, blew over the Joeh, in a cavity of which lay a 
small lake, solidly frozen over. This on the 19th day of 
August! Ravelled shreds of cloud floated from the highest 
summits, but on all sides the eye ranged over a tumultuous 
expanse of snow-field, glacier, and barren rock, cleft by 
mighty chasms and abysses. In some directions the vision 
pierced far into Switzerland and Italy. 

17* 



198 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

The scene was one of sublime desolation,— the desolation 
where cold, solitude, and barrenness reign supreme. Some- 
times a far, white snow-field, on which the sunshine lay, 
glittered and sparkled lovely as the fields of fairy-land, while 
here and there a majestic peak displayed its shapely form, 
smooth and fair as spotless alabaster ; but generally speaking 
the outlook was solemn, stupendous, and severe, with few 
touches of beauty or gentleness to relieve its savage grandeur. 

Our descent, at first down a steep, rocky ledge, led us upon 
the Windach glacier, where again the rope had to be used. 
Beyond the glacier our course descended several thousand feet, 
by numberless turns and zigzags, into the Windachthal, adown 
which we kept company with the glacier torrent until a group 
of huts was reached, — the first below the snow-line, — where we 
drank our fill of fresh milk, cooled in a mountain spring. 
From these huts a splendid retrospect was had of the white 
summits we had crossed, looking far more pleasing from below 
than from above, as they glittered in the sun. Quitting the 
huts, we walked for three hours down the deep, narrow gorge 
of the Windachthal, the precipitous sides of which, dressed in 
deep-green pine, mingled with the lighter green of larch and 
Alpine cedar, were made luminous or thrown into deep shadow 
by the effusive light of an August afternoon. It was a rare 
and striking exhibition of color, — that variegated green with, 
the blue sky over it, and the dark chasm beneath, at the bot- 
tom of which — perhaps two thousand feet below the foot-path — 
was heard the fretful clamor of the deep-voiced torrent. 

At the lower terminus of the Windachthal we looked down 
from a lofty promontory into the deep basin of the Oetzthal, 
the longest lateral valley of the Inn. At the bottom of this 
valley appeared the village of Solden, whose pretty white cot- 
tages and church, surrounded by velvety meadows and forests 
of pointed cedars and pines, presented a very pleasing picture. 
Descending from the heights, we refreshed ourselves for an 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 199 

hour at the village inn, past the door of which dashed and 
sparkled one of the loveliest cascades in all Tyrol. Although 
it is not starred in the guide-books, or famous like the Giess- 
bach, or the Staubbach, this silvery torrent of the Oetzthal is 
in some respects more beautiful than either. Far up the 
mountain side it gushes forth from the environing foliage, then 
dashes down an evenly-inclined plane for a quarter of a mile 
over its rocky bed, sparkling, flashing, roaring in wild, beauti- 
ful tumult of boisterous haste, until it pours itself into the 
channel of the Ache at the bottom of the valley. Nothing 
could be finer in its way than this mad little cataract with its 
village, forest, and meadow accompaniments ; and while re- 
garding the bewitching insanity of its frenzied flood I felt that 
it would be a great happiness to be an artist capable of show- 
ing truthfully on canvas how the waters come down at Solden. 
The Alpine valleys have certain features which are common 
to them all, or nearly all. Their primary stage is that of a 
fissure or gorge into which the torrents fall or the glaciers 
slide. In descending from its parent snow-field, or nevS, the 
glacier usually reaches the brink of a lofty semicircular bench 
or ridge, in falling over which its mass is fissured, broken, and 
disintegrated. With this bench, or the terminal moraine which 
has been carried over it, the valley proper begins. In elevated 
regions of this character no trees grow, although herbage and 
flowers are sometimes seen up to the very edge of the ice-cur- 
rent. The next stage brings us down to the timber-line, where 
begin the hardier growths of mountain conifera, at first 
dwarfed and scattered, but soon acquiring the proportions of a 
well-developed forest. Below this belt the valley almost in- 
variably expands, making room for meadows and the first 
human settlements ; then it contracts until it becomes, perhaps, 
a mere gorge between the mountains ; then it widens again to 
greater extent than before, affording tillable laud enough to 
support a considerable settlement, with possibly a village. 



200 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

These contractions and expansions, usually not more than three 
or four in number, but more numerous when the valley is a 
long one, alternate with successive benches or plateaus, which 
drop from one plane to another like gigantic stairs. Finally, 
the valley terminates in a narrow gorge, with lofty and pre- 
cipitous sides, through which its waters find vent. 

Such was the Windachthal, out of which we had just 
emerged, and such also the Gurglerthal, into which we were 
about to enter. Both of these are minor branches of the 
Oetzthal, which is broad and fertile at its lower extremity, but 
in its upper portions is much exposed to mud-torrents and 
avalanches, and branches off into many wild ravines which 
ramify the vast ice-fields of the Oetzthaler Alps. The largest 
of these ravines is the Fenderthal, into which descend the 
glacier torrents of its branches, the Rofenthal and Niederthal. 
Furrowing, in a converging course, the northern slope of the 
gigantic Alpine water-shed between the Inn and the Adige, 
the Fenderthal and Gurglerthal unite and lose their identity 
in the Oetzthal ; between them rises a lofty glacier-bearing 
range crossed by a pass, practicable for pedestrians, known as 
the Ramoljoch ; at their junction, in the Oetzthal, lies the little 
hamlet of Zwieselstein, above which rises the huge rocky 
bastion in which the dividing range terminates. At Zwiesel- 
stein we reach the Gurglerthal by climbing the steep mountain 
barrier which closes its entrance, excepting only the chasm 
through which its torrent escapes into the Oetzthal. After we 
have scrambled up this height by a fatiguing course, among 
rocks and pine-trees, the valley opens before us in narrow, far- 
reaching perspective, between converging ranges of lofty moun- 
tains. Few people dwell in this remote, icy solitude; its lone- 
liness is almost oppressive. A few patches of meadow furnish 
its sole promise of human sustenance. 

The only person we saw or met on our way up the Gurgler- 
thal was the neighborhood postman, — like ourselves, a pedes- 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 201 

trian. Whatever mail he carried — if any — was contained in 
a haversack, which seemed to be in a chronic state of vacuity. 
To our inquiries whether he had any letters for us, he replied 
with looks of blank amazement. Our most unaccountable 
questions were no doubt jotted down in his memory among 
the most bewildering occurrences of his life. 

The last and principal settlement in this valley is the little 
hamlet of Ober Gurgel, of which Baedeker speaks as " the 
loftiest village in Tyrol, situated amid magnificent scenery." 
Now, Baedeker is extremely sparing of superlatives, and when 
he says anything is magnificent we may be sure that it is so. 
And so, in this case, the event proved. We approached Ober 
Gurgel about sunset, after a walk of four hours and a half 
from Solden, and found it a pretty cluster of cottages among 
the pastures, grouped around a neat little chapel. All around 
it rise gigantic mountains, out of the notches of which hang 
the wrinkled tongues — like those of monsters caged — of some 
of the most wonderful glaciers in the Oetzthal field. The 
village contains no inn, but the cure, good soul, came out to 
greet us, extending both hands, and bidding us welcome to 
lodge under his roof. Had we been old acquaintances and 
near friends, we could not have been more thoughtfully enter- 
tained than we were that night at the fireside of this noble- 
hearted stranger. Human hearts seem to grow warmer as we 
approach the regions of perpetual ice. Ober Gurgel lies six 
thousand two hundred and sixty-six feet — more than a mile — 
above the plane of Paris or New York. 

Early next morning we set out for the Ramoljoch. A 
short distance from the village our path led up a steep, 
meadowy mountain, until a height of at least two thousand 
feet was gained above the brawling torrent of the Gurgler 
Ache. From this altitude a splendid retrospect was had of 
the Gurglerthal, overhung by craggy precipices and snow- 
capped mountains. The pretty hamlet of Ober Gurgel seemed 



202 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

but a group of toy houses among the bright-green meadows. 
Above us, a thousand feet or more, a huge stratum of ice, ap- 
parently hundreds of feet thick, glittered like glass upon an 
overhanging ledge, from which it seemed ready to roll down 
upon our heads. Beyond us, looking up the valley, the great 
Gurgler glacier was seen, with its tributary snow-fields, pour- 
ing its resistless ice-current across the path of its less powerful 
neighbor, the Langthaler glacier, which descends into the 
same valley. Traces of this conflict between the prodigious 
forces of nature are seen in the scarred condition of the walls 
of the arena within which they have wrestled with one 
another. The beaten combatant seems, for the present, to 
have drawn back into its lair; for a placid lake, in which 
small icebergs float, now usually holds a truce between the 
contending glaciers, albeit, at the time we passed by, this 
gentle peace-maker had disappeared, — by evaporation, — leaving 
behind it only a seamed and discolored chasm. 

As we pursued our course along the face of the mountain, 
about two thousand feet above the Gurgler glacier, its grace- 
fully-curved moraine could be seen winding down the valley 
for miles from the vast neve which lay behind it. Above the 
neve* rose the Hochwildspitze, and various other giant peaks 
with Brobdingnagian titles. To the eastward the Gross 
Glockner ice-field is sometimes visible from here, but from our 
eyes it was veiled by rapidly-gathering vapor, which the 
atmospheric caprice of these lofty altitudes soon converted into 
mist. Clambering over huge piles of rocky debris we reached 
the Ramol glacier, over which we walked, wading knee-deep 
in last year's snow. Meanwhile, in lieu of the mist, a heavy 
precipitation of snow had set in, and flew before the wind, 
which blew among the blackened crags around the glacier, a 
howling gale. By the time we had gained the summit of the 
Joch the storm had reached its crisis, and we were glad to 
seek refuge from its violence under a sheltering ledge. Such 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 203 

was the state of the weather, on the Ramoljoch, on the 20th 
day of August. 

The temperature was wintry ; nothing could be seen. Our 
young Munich friend, who had been ambitious to show how 
much faster he could get over rocks and glaciers than the rest 
of us, lay down on the wet stones and fell asleep from fatigue. 
His face was blanched, and there was apparently no strength 
left in him. After waiting an hour for the storm to abate, we 
awakened him with the admonition that if he hoped ever to 
see the fatherland again, he had better prepare to move. 
From the Joch, which is but a narrow comb of rock, we de- 
scended, on the western slope, to the Spiegel glacier, whose 
treacherous crevasses made it necessary to use the rope. For 
some thousands of feet we passed, with prodigious strides, 
down an inclined plane of soft snow, into which, at every step, 
we sank to the knees. Keeping progress with our descent, 
the snow merged into solid ice, and the sky began to clear, so 
that, by the time we came upon the hard, blue surface of the 
lower glacier, the white peaks, emerging as if freshly blanched 
from their baptism of cloud, fairly dazzled in the sunshine. 
Suddenly we found ourselves again in genuine August weather, 
the heat of which caused the surface of the ice to trickle with 
thousands of little currents, bright and transparent as rippling 
sunlight. With the speed of magic nearly the whole sky was 
swept of cloud, but below us, in the gorges of the Fenderthal 
and Niederthal, masses of white vapor still concealed all 
beneath them. Not long, however, for as if seized with fright 
and bewilderment, those vapory masses suddenly began to 
move rapidly to and fro ; then, as if shot from a cannon's 
mouth, rose perpendicularly in whirling eddies until, striking 
a colder medium, they were absorbed and disappeared. 

At the foot of the glacier our little party separated, we two 
turning to the left up the Niederthal, and our Munich friend 
keeping straight on down the valley to Fend. We had not 



204 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

gone far until, looking back, we saw our weary companion lying 
flat on the ground, taking a good rest. Evidently he had felt 
himself in no condition to accompany us on the rough route we 
had chosen. 

Our first task was to cross the moraine of the Spiegel glacier, 
— >a huge mass of broken rock, jammed together in the bed 
of the gorge. The undertaking was one requiring much cau- 
tion, as I was soon taught by a violent fall and lucky escape 
from serious bruises. The unshapen blocks of sienite, carried 
down by the ice, lay with their flinty corners and angles most 
inconveniently upturned, and were surfaced like a rasp. 

Up the Niederthal and the Rofenthal, which unite at Fend, 
lead the two principal bridle-paths which cross the range, the 
one by the Niederjoch, the other by the Hochjoch. On either 
side of these ravines the mountains, treeless and very steep, 
rise to the height of ten thousand to twelve thousand feet. 
Turning from the moraine sharply to the left, we crossed a 
rocky ridge, and walked along the eastern face of the Nieder- 
thal, at a height of from two thousand to three thousand feet 
above the bottom of the ravine. We were now in the midst 
of an enormous cluster of ice-bearing ranges, and as we ad- 
vanced up the gorge a splendid scene burst upon our vision. 
First the round, crystalline top of the Schalfkogel, incom- 
parably white against the deep-blue sky, came into view on 
our left ; then, simultaneously, the equally white and dazzling 
but more irregular Kreutzspitze lifted its serrated pinnacles to 
our right ; and directly before us, a very dream of Alpine grace 
and beauty, rose the symmetrical, snow-enshrouded pyramid 
of the Similaun. Around the semicircle outlined by this 
trinity of giants, a series of immense glaciers — those of the 
Marzell and the Hochjoch being chief — poured their mighty 
ice-currents into the abysses of the Rofenthal and Niederthal. 
The Marzell glacier, with its tributaries, forms a colossal mass 
of ice which descends far into the valley, carrying with it a 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 205 

serpentine moraine of graceful curvature and measureless 
weight of crushed and abraded rock. About a thousand feet 
above this mass, along the western slope of the gorge, leads 
the path to the Samoar Hutte and the Niederjoch. This path 
we reached by descending the eastern slope and crossing the 
ravine upon a lofty snow-bridge formed by an avalanche 
which, descending from the mountain, had filled the lower 
part of the gorge with its huge mass, and obliged the torrent 
to burrow through it. 

The Samoar Hutte, on the Niederjoch, like the Dresdener 
Hutte, on the Bildstockljoch, is a rude cabin built by the 
Alpine Club for the benefit of mountain adventurers. By 
diligent climbing we managed to reach the hut just as the sun 
was setting, and just in time to find refuge from a violent rain. 
Several German tourists — one a lady — had just taken lodgings 
for the night, and a savory smell of coffee and roast mutton 
pervaded the domicile. The pouring of the rain on the thin 
pine roof, the subdued roar of the torrent down in the gorge, 
and the sizzle of fresh meat in the saucepan formed a collection, 
if not a harmony, of sweet sounds particularly pleasing to 
people so hungry and tired as ourselves. A curious company 
we were, too, as we sat around the rough tables, endeavoring to 
twist the German language into threads of conversation from 
the inharmonious spindles of half a dozen different dialects. 
While we were all doing our best to be comfortable and happy, 
suddenly, like an apparition, the full moon, peering through a 
notch in the mountains, looked in at the open door, and seemed 
to laugh a wild, merry, elfish laugh from its big, round face. 
The clouds had broken away a little and given our serene 
visitor a chance to make this call ; but directly the vapory cur- 
tains knit together again, the rain resumed its musical beat, 
and our group of weary pedestrians one after another sur- 
rendered their consciousness to the magic of its lullaby. 

At dawn, the rain having ceased, we took a guide and set 

18 



206 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

out to scale the Kreutzspitze. The ascent began at the door of 
the hut, and was toilsome all the way to the summit, but the 
effort it cost was abundantly requited by ever unfolding and 
widening views of indescribable grandeur. We seemed to be 
between two planes of vapor, one veiling the topmost peaks, 
and the other wedged into the abysses far below us. The 
Venter Wildspitze — the loftiest of the Oetzthal Alps — dis- 
closed only the lower part of its massive pyramid, and the 
Weisskugel — twelve thousand three hundred feet — stubbornly 
refused to display its full grandeur of height and form. 
Nevertheless, the spectacle was sublime enough, as we looked 
around from a height of over ten thousand feet upon a vast 
field of icy desolation, overtopped by mountain giants which 
were playing hide-and-seek with the frantic, wind-driven 
clouds. The atmospheric bewilderment, almost dramatic in 
its effects, was something glorious to witness. The movement 
of the immense masses of vapor, swept hither and thither, 
laterally and perpendicularly, by the capricious atmospheric 
currents, imparted to the mountains a certain mysterious 
grandeur which they could scarcely have had under clear skies. 
When the clouds broke above the snowy peaks, and the sun 
streamed down upon their crystalline whiteness, making their 
wind-polished, spotless surfaces gleam and dazzle, the effect 
was almost supernaturally grand ; it was like a revelation 
from the skies. Over immense fields of ice and snow, inter- 
mittently revealed, black canopies of cloud trailed their frayed 
edges, as if rapidly dragged from above by some unseen spirit 
of the air. In all directions fissured glaciers poured their 
currents into the valleys, from whose dark depths, thousands 
of feet below us, came up the deep, solemn roar of rushing 
waters. There was no other sound than that, and no other 
life than our own. We seemed to have passed into a supermun- 
dane sphere, solitary, savage, and sublime, having neither sym- 
pathy nor connection with the genial dwelling-places of men. 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 207 

The wind was keen, and snow fell occasionally from the 
shreds of cloud which swept over us. To keep from being 
chilled, my companion exercised himself by starting over the 
brink large fragments of rock which lay loose upon the sum- 
mit, and watching them plunge in prodigious leaps from 
precipice to precipice until the shock of their tremendous 
momentum came up in echoing thunders from the unseen 
abysses beneath. My athletic friend was admonished not to 
spoil the scenery by tearing down the mountain, but kept 
heedlessly on, heaving overboard one huge stone after another, 
until it seemed as if another Polypheme were there, bombard- 
ing some fugitive Ulysses. The Kreutzspitze was finally 
saved from complete abrasion by the constraint of other 
engagements compelling us to quit the mountain, which we 
had planned to do in the direction of the Rofenthal. In 
order to descend on that side we were obliged, at first, to walk 
along a cornice of snow which overhung a precipice of great 
height. As the cornice sloped steeply to the right, we kept 
near its outer edge, which projected over the ledge beneath it. 
Fortunately it was solid enough to bear our weight ; other- 
wise this record never would have been written. At the end 
of the cornice we found a practicable route of descent down the 
steep — nearly perpendicular — side of the cone to the glacier, 
or rather to its neve, over which we walked in soft snow, 
sinking, sometimes, nearly to the waist. We marched single 
file, a few yards apart, attached to each other by a hemp cord, 
which we hoped was stout enough to enable any two of us to 
pull the third out of any crevasse, or Bergschrund, into which 
he might fall. There were many treacherous places, where 
the snow changed color, and its incrusted surface sounded 
hollow beneath our footfalls. We felt much relieved when 
we reached the solid ice, seamed and perforated as it was by 
pits and crevasses. 

A descent of two hours brought us to the Rofenthal Hospice, 



208 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

at the foot of the Hochjoch glacier. The enormous mass of 
ice which constitutes this glacier lies across the range like a 
saddle, discharging its current on the northern side into the 
Rosenthal, and on the southern into the Schnalserthal. To 
cross it from end to end, exclusive of its ice-fall, requires a 
brisk walk of two hours. Although we had surveyed its en- 
tire extent from the Kreutzspitze, its magnitude was not fully 
realized until we came to traverse it on foot. Upon its steep 
northern incline thousands of rivulets were coursing down its 
surface, caused by the afternoon heat of the August sun. 
Frequently these rivulets, flowing together in a common 
channel, formed a considerable torrent, which poured into a 
perpendicular shaft in the ice with thunderous reverberations. 
These shafts, called moulins — mills, abound upon the Hoch- 
joch. They are scooped out by the swirls of water which 
are produced when the surface currents strike cracks in the 
ice caused by the movement of the glacier. Their depth 
varies from fifty to three hundred and fifty feet, according to 
the thickness of the ice and the ramification of its interior 
cavities. Nearly all glaciers are pierced by moulins in num- 
ber greater or less. Those of the Hochjoch, having large, 
slippery orifices, polished by the water, looked like horrible 
man-traps, into which it would be easy to slide, and from 
which it would be impossible to escape. 

Beyond the summit of the range the glacier slopes to the 
south, and the destination of its waters is changed from the 
Danube and the Black Sea to the Po and the Adriatic. Our 
guide left us at the southern extremity of the ice-field, where 
the Schnalserthal opens and a well-defined path begins. An 
hour's descent by this path brought us to Kurzras, the name 
given to the first chalet which is reached after passing the 
Joch. Here we remained for the night, glad to avail our- 
selves, after such a day's experiences, of the plain but scrupu- 
lously cleanly and most enjoyable hospitality of the chalet. 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 209 

August 22. — Left Kurzras at 7.30 a.m. Rain had fallen 
during the night, and the upper mountains were enveloped in 
m'r ( sty cloud which, while excluding the sunshine, seemed to 
impart a deeper greenness to the meadows and to the splendid 
groves of larch and cedar which beautify the rugged slopes of 
the Upper Schnalserthal. Under the fringes of the clouds 
which trailed along the mountains could be seen the traces of a 
fresh snow-fall which, soon after we quitted Kurzras, began to 
descend into the lower plane of the valley, where it was 
changed to rain. On the Hochjoch a violent snow-storm was 
raging. Defying the vicious weather, which seemed to be 
quite in keeping with the savage solitudes of the Schnalserthal, 
we walked rapidly, and at 10 A.M. arrived at a forlorn-look- 
ing hamlet named Unser Frau. Upon entering the inn we 
found there several tourists, among whom was our Munich 
fellow-traveller who had quitted us on the Spiegel glacier. 
After resting for a day, he had been able to get over the Hoch- 
joch, and was now fortifying himself with Botzen beer against 
the depressing influences of the weather. 

From Unser Frau we walked in a steady rain down to 
Carthaus, the next hamlet, near which the valley shrinks to a 
narrow gorge of immense depth, through which the Schnalser- 
bach rushes noisily. The scenery here is magnificently wild. 
While we were descending the steep and stony path below 
Carthaus, in the midst of a solitary glen, we overtook an aged 
crone, bent and hook-nosed, hobbling along on her stick, — the 
ideal of a mountain witch. She did not perceive us until, 
owing to the narrowness of the path, I was obliged to crowd 
past her, when, uplifting her face, she turned her sharp eyes on 
me, and broke into an eldritch laugh. The rencontre was so 
ridiculously odd that even a witch could not help being amused 
by it. 

As we emerged from the defile, a rift in the clouds disclosed 
a small church, with slender, cross-bearing spire, standing on 
o 18* 



210 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

the brink of a promontory, thousands of feet above the bed 
of the torrent. In a moment the aerial shrine was again en- 
shrouded in misty vapor and disappeared like an apparition 
of the sky. 

At Ratteis, where the path develops into a rude wagon- 
track, we hired an Einspllnner to carry us to the foot of the 
valley, which terminates in a narrow defile between perpen- 
dicular walls of rock. Through this mountain gate-way we 
entered the broad valley of the Adige, hoping to overtake the 
up-going post diligence, but it had already passed by. There 
was no alternative but to walk, and we trudged on in the rain 
as far as Castelbell, where we were so fortunate as to obtain a 
good dinner and a covered Einspanner to Schlanders. Here 
we hired another vehicle to Laas, near which a mud-avalanche 
had just descended from the mountain and obstructed the road. 
Having walked around this obstruction, we obtained, finally, 
a carriage direct to Mais, where we arrived, thoroughly rain- 
soaked and chilled, about 8.30 p.m. 

The names of the villages in the Adige "Valley will not strike 
the reader as being euphonious. Compounded of a harsh 
mixture of the German and E-omansch languages, these titles 
are applied to towns which are as unsightly in appearance as 
their names are unmusical in sound. 

Aiming to overtake the early diligence at Minister, we 
quitted Mais before daybreak. A gentle morning breeze blew 
fresh and fragrant out of the cedar forests, whose blank black- 
ness took form and color from the golden light of a glorious 
sunrise which crowned with auroral splendor the mountains in 
the neighborhood of the Stelvio Pass. The augury seemed 
favorable for a serene, unclouded day, but it was not to be 
trusted. No coquette was ever more capricious, or in sunny 
moods more captivating, than is the weather in these Alpine 
regions. 

A mile or so from Miinster, towards Mais, the road crosses 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 211 

the Austrian boundary and enters Switzerland. Instantly a 
striking change takes place. The primitive cart-track develops 
into a broad, solid highway ; stony, half-tended fields, over- 
grown with weeds, give place to trim, luxuriant farms ; grimy 
chalets and filthy villages, where compost heaps rise beside the 
door-step, are exchanged for neatly-built and painted cottages, 
with flowers and snowy lace — sure tokens of cleanliness and 
comfort — in their well-polished windows. 

At Minister we took seats in a handsomely-cushioned dili- 
gence, quite the reverse of the rude, jolting vehicle in which 
we had come from Mais. Our course followed the windings 
of the Munsterthal, which we ascended amidst smooth, verdant 
meadows and pretty villages as cleanly and home-like as those 
of New England. The neat white cottages of the peasantry, 
built with thick walls and small windows on account of the 
severe winters, looked very attractive, scattered up and down 
the green valley. The neighboring mountain slopes consist 
mainly of meadow and evergreen forests until the upper part 
of the valley is reached, when the snowy Alps again appear. 
The road mounts by a long zigzag to the crest of the range, 
which commands a charming retrospect towards Minister and 
the Tyrol. 

The Ladin language, spoken by the people of the Munster- 
thal, is supposed to be similar to the Latin dialect of the an- 
cient Roman peasants. Most of the people are familiar also 
with the German, which language they speak with correctness 
and distinctness, in pleasing contrast with the wretched dialects 
of the Tyrolese. The Ladin rendering of the second and third 
verses of the Ninety-sixth Psalm is thus given by Baedeker : 

Chante al Segner, celebre sieu nom, annunze ogni di sieu 
salud. Requinte traunter Us p'ovels sia gloria, traunter tuottas 
naziuns sias ovras muravigliusas. — Sing unto the Lord, bless his 
name, show forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his 
glory among the heathen, his wonders among all the people. 



212 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

The village and valley of Minister belong to the canton of 
the Grisons. This canton, comprising about one-sixth of the 
entire territories of Switzerland, is remarkable alike in its 
history, its varied scenery and natural resources, and in its 
curious conglomeration of races and dialects. The canton con- 
tains about one hundred and fifty valleys and a vast net-work 
of mountain ranges. In some of the valleys, as in the 
Minister, Ladin is spoken ; in others, a similar dialect known 
as the Romansch ; while in some sections the German tongue 
prevails, and in others the Italian. The climate varies from 
that of the benign skies of Northern Italy to the wintry deso- 
lation of perpetual snow. 

Our course now lay over the Buffalora Alp and the Ofen 
Pass to Zernetz, in the Lower Engadine. From Zernetz, a 
thriving trading town, we drove, by JEinspdnner, down the Inn 
Valley to Siis, and there overtook the diligence about to leave 
for the Fluela. The vehicle was crowded with passengers, the 
ubiquitous English tourist, conspicuous in helmet-shaped hat 
and long linen havelock, claiming, as usual, a large share of 
space and attention. Directly after quitting Sits, "with its 
ruined castle on a larch-clad hill," the road to the Fluela 
turns into a monotonous ravine, and begins to mount the range 
by the usual windings and turnings. The Fluela Pass, though 
not so celebrated as some others, is nearly one thousand feet 
higher than the St. Gothard, or the Spliigen, and two thousand 
feet higher than the Rigi Kulm. The Stelvio and the Furca 
are the only European wagon- routes which surpass it in alti- 
tude. The highest point on the road was reached, in three 
hours, just as a fierce storm of snow and wind, accompanied 
by lightning and heavy thunder, swept over the summit. In 
a few minutes the ground became white from the snow-fall, 
and the transformation from midsummer in the valley to mid- 
winter on the mountain-top was complete. A solitary hospice 
for wayfarers on the pass was the only sign of human dwell- 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 213 

ing in this desolate place. My young fellow-adventurer, who 
had accompanied me from Innsbruck, concluded to remain 
overnight at this hospice, in the hope that the weather would 
be favorable for ascending the Schwarzhorn the following 
morning. His hopes were not realized, as I afterwards 
learned, while my own expectations of a comfortable night's 
rest at Davos Dorfli, which we reached by a rapid zigzag 
descent of two hours from the summit, were not disappointed. 

The sheltered position of Davos Ddrfli, together with the 
beauty of its surroundings, have given it much reputation 
both as a summer and as a winter resort, and have caused it to 
acquire facilities for elegant and comfortable leisure which the 
stranger by no means expects in a place so sequestered. Oppo- 
site to the town hangs the broad, white shield of the Scaletta 
glacier, which reappears by reflection, in the blue surface of 
the Davoser See, an attractive little lake in the vicinity of 
Davos. Many lofty mountains, dressed in Alpine white and 
green, also reflect themselves in these bright waters. 

Beyond the lake, towards Ober Laret and Klosters, the road 
descends into the valley of the Landquart, and the Silvretta 
glacier and snow-field disclose themselves at the parting of 
the mountains. Most of the villages in the vicinity are more 
or less the resorts of invalids and pleasure-seekers, and are 
composed of rude log chalets and elegant summer hotels, 
oddly mixed. Going westward, the road descends the fruitful, 
well-improved valley of the Landquart, which emerges between 
rocky bastions into the broader basin of the Upper Rhine. 
A few miles down-stream from this junction of the valleys lies 
Mayenfeld, once a Roman station, nearly opposite to which, 
on the left bank of the Rhine, is situated the renowned sum- 
mer resort named, from its twin villages, Ragatz-Pfaffers. 

The hot spring which supplies the baths of Ragatz issues 
from a cleft in the rocks five hundred feet above the village. 
The location of this spring has been properly described as one 



214 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

of the most wonderful spots iu Switzerland. From the valley 
it may be reached by a narrow carriage-road, which has been 
hewn out of the rocky walls of the ravine through which the 
impetuous torrent of the Tamina descends from the moun- 
tains and pours into the Rhine. Just above the village this 
torrent precipitates itself over a ledge of rock twenty or thirty 
feet in height, forming a pretty cascade. An hour's walk 
from this point up the ravine brings us to the bath-house 
known as Bad Pfaffers, perched upon an elevated spot — the 
only one available — above the noisy torrent. A long corridor 
through this building leads to the fissure by which an 
enormous mass of natural rock thrown across the ravine has 
been cloven asunder. Through this fissure, which measures 
apparently from two hundred and fifty to three hundred feet 
from top to bottom, the foaming torrent of the Tamina dashes. 
A wooden gallery, laid upon a shoulder of rock about thirty 
feet above the bed of the stream, leads into the chasm, under 
the drip and pour of unseen springs descending from above. 
The interior is gloomy, but looking aloft, most exquisite vistas 
are seen, through the parted rocks and overhanging foliage, of 
blue sky and snowy cloud. At its upper extremity the fissure 
forms an irregular cleft, narrowing obliquely downward, which 
reveals, like a stereoscope, the far, conical forms of evergreens, 
in different shades of color, standing one above another on 
the precipitous sides of the upper gorge, in clear silhouette 
against the cerulean above and behind them. 

The spring is approached from the interior of the chasm by 
a lateral cavern, dark as pitch, in the natural rock. With a 
light, which an attendant provides, the bubbling fountain may 
be seen, smoking like a caldron, and filling the cavern with 
vapor. The water, very clear and nearly tasteless, has a tem- 
perature of about 98° Fahrenheit. The ordinary discharge 
per minute is eight hundred litres ; sometimes it rises to fifteen 
hundred litres. Ten or fifteen feet higher than the surface of 



A TRAMP THROUGH TYROL. 215 

the spring a point is marked on the rock to which the Tamina 
is said, to have risen during a freshet in 1865. 

Above the spring, outside the chasm, a path leads by a 
natural bridge across the gorge, then by a winding course up 
the mountain, to the village of Pfaffers. During an evening 
stroll on this path, I was deeply impressed with the beauty 
and sublimity of the scenery in this part of the Rhine Valley. 
The blending of colors on the mountains was a fascinating 
study. Peaks, crags, and precipices, bare, stern, and misshapen, 
were pencilled with such delicacy of tint, light, and shadow as 
to transform their hard lines into lines of mellifluent grace, 
and their rugged forms into forms of ideal loveliness. Among 

Do O 

the forests and pastures whose alternating tones of green 
checkered the plane and sides of the valley, white-walled vil- 
lages were strewn up and down, enlivening and inspiring the 
beautiful forms and combinations of Nature. 

Among these villages Ragatz rightfully holds the place of 
honor. Its parks, drives, promenades, baths, and splendid 
mountain surroundings make it one of the most delightful 
places in Switzerland. Of the fifty thousand strangers who 
come here every year, probably none go away disappointed, — 
at least not with what Nature has done to make their sojourn 
interesting and agreeable. , The scenery of the Upper Rhine 
is less famous than that of the Lower, but far more sublime. 
Lovely beyond expression is the view down the valley from 
my window in the Quellenhof as I write these lines. The 
evening sun is just sliding behind the mountain-tops, diffusing 
the crystalline atmosphere with mellow radiance, and darting 
volleys of arrowy, golden light against the helmeted summits 
and grim old battlements of rock, seamed and grizzled with 
the storms of ages and eons. The quiet valley, smiling, sinks 
into shadowy slumber, cradled between sentinel lines of Alpine 
giants, whose serried vista leads the eye and heart up and 
away into the unspeakable infinite. Bounding the western 



216 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

horizon, four peaks of almost even height stand in array and 
receive the last passionate, fiery kisses of the departing sun. So 
serene and ethereal is the sky with which they seem to blend 
and harmonize, that we instinctively imagine bright spirits to 
be hovering there, — spirits too pure and gentle for this unquiet, 
unsatisfying sphere of action, — which beckon us with glancing 
wings to come and enjoy with them a more guileless and tran- 
quil existence, lying 

Far off, beyond the mountain's brim, — 
There, where the rich cascade of day, 

O'er the horizon's golden rim, 
Into Elysium rolls away. 



CHAPTEE XIV. 

THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHAKD. 

Ragatz lies on the grand highway through Eastern Switzer- 
land to Italy, over the Spliigen. A railway which has con- 
nections, through Zurich and Constance, with all the South 
German cities, extends as far south as Coire ; from thence con- 
veyance is obtained over the pass to Chiavenna and Colico 
by diligence. Travellers leaving Ragatz in the morning 
arrive at the village of Spliigen, situated at the northern base 
of the pass, the following evening. 

From Coire the diligence ascends the Rhine Valley as far as 
Reichenau, at which point the Vorder-Rhein, or principal 
branch of the river, coming down from the St. Gothard, is 
joined by its tributary, the Hinter-Rhein, coming from the 
Bernardino and the Spliigen. The conflict of waters where 
the two streams come together, at Reichenau, is much like that 
seen at the confluence of the Rhone and the Arve near Geneva, 
the Vorder-Rhein, despite its superior volume, being forced 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 217 

back by the turbid and more impetuous current of the Hinter- 
Rhein. The best view of the rivers is obtained from a 
pavilion in the garden of the chateau, originally an abbey, in 
which Louis Philippe obtained refuge, in 1794, under the 
name of Chabot. 

At Reichenau the diligence for the Spliigen turns into the 
valley of the Hinter-Rhein, famous for its fertility, its castles, 
crowning nearly every eminence, and its beauty of scenery. 
Ascending this valley, we pass through a series of villages, 
remarkable, like those of the Vorder-Rhein, for their curious 
mixture of languages and creeds. The language of Coire is 
German, and its religion Protestant ; Ems, three miles south 
of Coire, is Romansch in language, and in religion Roman 
Catholic. Reichenau, three miles beyond Ems, is German 
and Protestant, while Bonaduz — -just across the Vorder-Rhein 
from Reichenau — and Rhaziins and Katzis, in the Hinter- 
Rheinthal, are Romansch and Roman Catholic. Thusis, at 
the gate of the mountains, is German and Protestant; Andeer, 
Zillis, and the other villages farther up, are Romansch and 
Protestant. In the upper part of the Hinter-Rheinthal, 
known as the Rheinwald, Protestantism and the Romansch 
language find their limit at the St. Bernardino Pass ; on the 
southern slope of that pass, in the Mesocco "Valley, the villages 
are all Italian and Roman Catholic. 

At Thusis I had the good fortune to be transferred from the 
crowded diligence to an open carriage — Beiwagen — for the re- 
mainder of the journey, as far as Spliigen. A drive of ten 
minutes from Thusis brought us to the entrance of the Via 
Mala gorge, on the left of which, upon a promontory eight 
hundred feet high, are the ruins of the most ancient castle in 
Switzerland. This castle is said to have been built about six 
hundred years before Christ by the Etruscan hero Rhsetus, as 
a barrier against the barbaric Gauls, then about to swarm over 
the Alps into Northern Italy. The defile, as we enter it ? 
k 19 



218 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

looks like a fissure in the limestone rock, which rises on both 
sides, almost perpendicularly, to the height of sixteen hundred 
feet. Through this chasm,' a mile and a quarter in length, 
the Hinter-Rhein pours its noisy torrent. Geologists declare 
that the gorge is not a fissure at all, but a channel, which the 
erosive waters have cut into the rock in the course of ages. 
The devouring torrent, they tell us, disintegrated and literally 
dissolved the limestone, until it got down to its present bed. 
A huge body of water which appears to have been anciently 
confined within the bed of the valley above the chasm may 
have greatly reinforced and accelerated the erosive process. 

Until the building of the present road, in 1822, there was no 
thoroughfare through the gorge except a difficult and dangerous 
path only four feet wide. The road, made possible only by 
cutting into the face of the rock, and once or twice by tunnel- 
ling, crosses the chasm by three different bridges, one of 
which — a single arch — hangs at the airy height of two hundred 
and sixty feet above the torrent. Beneath this bridge the 
craggy sides of the chasm almost touch, allowing but narrow 
glimpses of the boiling waters far below. Leaning over the 
guard-walls, we let fall pieces of slate, which, descending flat- 
wise, like miniature parachutes, struck the angry current with- 
out perceptible sound. Yet the water is said to have risen, in 
1868, within a few feet of the arch. The view from this 
bridge — the central one of the three — as the finest in the 
gorge. Forward and backward curves irregularly the sinuous 
chasm ; below rage the wild waters, scarcely audible in their 
abysmal channel ; over us tower the beetling crags and 
precipices. We are closeted here with Nature, and awe-struck, 
amazed, and overwhelmed by the sublimity and mystery of her 
works. 

Just above the third bridge the gorge opens into a valley 
of moderate width, once the basin of a lake. On an eminence 
to the right stand the ruins of a castle once occupied by the 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 219 

mediaeval rulers of this valley, one of whom, it is said, was a 
cruel tyrant of the Gessler type. Entering, one day, the hut 
of a peasant whom he disliked, this mean-spirited despot spit 
in the boiling broth which the poor man was cooking for his 
dinner. Thereupon the enraged peasant seized his ignoble 
highness by the throat, thrust his head into the pot which he 
had denied, and held it there until he was strangled, exclaim- 
ing, " Eat the soup thou hast seasoned." Such is one of the 
traditions of this remote little community. 

Passing additional castles and ruins, we enter another defile, 
three miles in length, known as the Roffna ravine, resembling, 
in some respects, the Via Mala. In descending this chasm 
the youthful but robust and boisterous torrent of the Rhine 
forms a series of riotous water-falls. The road now ascends 
rapidly, and by so many zigzags that a pedestrian, taking the 
direct foot-paths, has no difficulty in keeping far in advance 
of the diligence. Far up the mountain slopes, on both sides 
of the chasm, mount the serried spires of pines, cedars, and 
other conifera, whose richly- verdant color, of various shades, 
seems to be indigenous only to such elevated regions. 

Beyond the RoiFna ravine the road courses, gently ascend- 
ing, through an ideal Alpine valley, until it reaches the village 
of Spliigen, where we remained for the night. At Spliigeu 
the road branches, its direct line continuing up the valley of 
the Hinter-Rhein to the Bernardino Pass, beyond which it 
descends to Roveredo and Bellinzona, at the foot of the St. 
Gothard. From the point on this road where it quits the 
valley and ascends to the Bernardino, a path for pedestrians 
leads to the Zapport glacier, near which the infant Rhine 
issues from an aperture in the mountain resembling, in shape, 
the mouth of a cow. The spring which flows copiously from 
this aperture is soon augmented by tributaries coming down 
from the glaciers, and descends past a tumultuous mass of 
fragmentary rock known as Holle, and a wretched stony 



220 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

pasture named, by antithesis, Parodies. Farther on the 
sturdy little stream burrows its way through huge masses of 
avalanche snow which are heaped across its channel the whole 
year round. It is worth remarking that, while the source of 
the Hinter-Rhein is the magnificent spring just described, its 
twin torrent, the Vorder-Rhein, has its origin in the Toma 
See, a sequestered and lovely lake. The altitude of the 
spring above sea-level is seven thousand two hundred and 
seventy feet; the altitude of the lake is seven thousand six 
hundred and ninety feet. 

Thus nobly born is the noblest river of the European con- 
tinent. 

Quitting the Rhine at Spliigen, the road to Italy grapples 
at once with the supreme difficulties of its mountain barrier. 
After mounting a few hundred feet above the village, it passes 
through a tunnel and enters a wild ravine, within which it 
makes its way up the face of the mountain by multitudinous 
zigzags. On some of these doublings long galleries have 
been built to protect the road from avalanches, which here 
descend, sometimes, in vast bulk and with lightning rapidity. 
At intervals along the line houses of refuge have been built, 
around which the snow piles itself in winter up to the win- 
dows. Upon the four highest of these houses bells are rung, 
during violent snow-storms, as a signal to travellers. 

Ninety years ago Marshal Macdonald undertook to march 
his divisiou of twelve thousand men over this range in the 
dead of winter. An imperative order that this should be ac- 
complished was given by Napoleon, then First Consul, his 
object being to throw an army into the Italian Tyrol, by way 
of the Valtellina, turn the line of the Mincio, and force the 
Austrians from the plains of Italy. At that day the only 
thoroughfare over the Spliigen was a mere bridle-path, and to 
attempt to pass the mountain by such a road in such a season 
seemed like madness. But Napoleon insisted that an army 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 221 

could go wherever two men could plant their feet, and Mac- 
donald, being a true soldier, obeyed orders. Placing his artillery 
on sledges, the general obliged his troops to carry their sup- 
plies of provisions and cartridges. The cavalry and artillery 
led the march, and made the first part of the ascent in fine 
weather, but were soon assailed by a tremendous tempest. 
The storm lasted three days, and in the midst of it an ava- 
lanche struck a squadron of dragoons and carried half of it into 
the abyss below. When the fury of the elements had abated, 
the snow lay so deep that oxen had to be sent in advance of 
the column to break a path, which squads of laborers beat 
down hard, and which sappers widened, when too narrow, by 
cutting away the ice. In this way the cavalry and artillery 
were enabled to effect a passage, and the first three columns of 
infantry managed to get over the range. The fourth and last 
column was following when another storm came on, blocked 
the road, and swept about a hundred men into the abysses of 
the Cardinelli gorge. General Macdonald was present with 
his men throughout these perils, and by his intrepidity sus- 
tained their flagging spirits amid their dreadful hardships. 
Under his personal leadership the road was again opened, and 
the entire corps, in the course of a few more days, gained the 
broad vine-planted basin of the Valtellina. 

The Splugen, like the Brenner, is one of the Alpine passes 
said to have been known to the ancient Romans. It is a trifle 
higher than the St. Gothard, but not so high as the Furca or 
the Fluela by a thousand feet. The road over the Stelvio 
mounts yet two thousand feet farther into cloudland. On 
both its northern and its southern slopes the scenery of the 
pass is exceedingly grand, yet less so than that of the Simplon, 
which is some hundreds of feet lower. On the summit, which 
a vigorous pedestrian may reach in less than two hours from 
the hotel at Splugen, a stone by the way-side marks the boun- 
dary between Switzerland and Italy. 

19* 



222 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

This road, like that of the Stelvio, was built by the Austrian 
government, and was intended mainly for military purposes. 
Its completion dates from 1821. 

The descent on the Italian side of the pass is much more 
striking than the ascent on the Swiss side. By a ladder-like 
series of zigzags cut upon the precipitous face of the moun- 
tain, we are lowered, by easy stages, as it were, out of the sky. 
Spurring his team into a rapid trot, our postilion swings the 
heavy six-horse diligence around the curves with great skill, 
keeping his leaders, three abreast, at a gallop. Just at the 
instant when it seems that our momentum must carry us over 
some nearing precipice, our flying steeds, scarcely waiting for 
the tightening rein, oblique in rapid chasse, and we round the 
cliff and mock the yawning chasm with the grace and ease of 
an eagle's flight. At frequent intervals the road is protected 
from avalanches by covered galleries, both under and over 
which torrents descend in couloirs from the steeps above. 
These galleries vary in length from two hundred and fifty to 
five hundred and fifty yards. As the down-going diligence 
emerges from one of the longest of them, a splendid view is 
obtained of the old road, and the village of Isola, lying in the 
gorge so far beneath us that the rude log chalets of the village 
look like toy houses with Liliputian inhabitants. A little 
farther along, a mad little stream, pouring from the mountain, 
dashes over a precipice and falls uninterruptedly seven hun- 
dred feet. The conductor of the diligence — prosaic and heed- 
less as he is of the sublime scenes about him — stops the 
vehicle long enough for passengers to get out and view this 
beautiful work of Nature. 

From Campodolcino we follow the descending course of the 
rock-strewn Liro Valley, whose savage aspect is softened by 
the luxuriant foliage of chestnut-trees, out of which rises the 
slender white campanile of the church of Gallivaggio. We 
have now entered a zone of vegetation which betokens the 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 223 

genial climate of the sunny south. Whole forests of great 
chestnut-trees extend far up the rocky sides of the mountains, 
and the vine, laden at this season with ripening clusters, 
blesses the husbandry of every peasant. An hour and a half 
after quitting the summit, the lumbering diligence rolls, with 
a great racket, through the narrow, stony streets of Chiavenna, 
observed by inquisitive people from the projecting stories of 
their dwellings until it reaches the postal rendezvous, and 
deposits there its curious medley of passengers. 

Three hours later we reached Colico, from whence an hour 
and a half by steamer brought us to Bellagio. 

The region of the North Italian lakes is a land of beauty 
and of perfect rest. Its tranquillity is halcyon, its loveliness 
supreme. In no way could I have acquired a deeper sense of 
its witchery than in descending to it, as I did, from the wintry 
desolation of the Upper Swiss and Tyrolese Alps. The con- 
trast between the scenes which I had just quitted and those 
which now surrounded me, intensified alike the grandeur of 
the mountain solitudes and the beauty of this gentle, vintage- 
bearing clime. Bellagio, amidst its gardens, vineyards, and 
placid waters, seemed, when I reached it, a very haven of 
repose and delight. 

The principal lakes of this region, named in their order 
from east to west, are Garda, Como, Lugano, Varese, and Orta. 
Como was highly extolled by Virgil, and from the time of 
Virgil until now the civilized world has paid admiring homage 
to the trinity of lacustrine loveliness, — Como, Lugano, and 
Maggiore. Each of these three has its partisans, and it is 
nothing to the detriment of the rivals that opinions differ as 
to which is superior in its attractions to the rest. For my 
own part, I cast the palm of my respectful preference at the 
shrine of Maggiore. At the same time, 

I could be happy with either, 
"Were the other dear charmers away. 



224 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Como has, in general, the steepest shores and the boldest 
scenery. The sunny slopes which descend to its waters are 
dressed in the deep-green foliage of the vine, the chestnut, and 
the walnut, mingled with the gray tints of the olive and the 
white walls of numerous villas and villages, the whole reflected 
and beautified in the cerulean depths of the lake. Of the 
entire series, Como is said to have the warmest climate in 
summer, and Varese the coolest. Lugano is environed by the 
most variegated landscape, including some mountains, easy of 
ascent, which command magnificent panoramic views. From 
Monte Generoso, called the Rigi of Italian Switzerland, are 
seen seventeen lakes, the plains of Lombardy, and the whole 
chain of Southern Alps from Monte "Viso to the Bernina. 
The view from Monte Salvatore embraces Lake Lugano, 
with all its branches, the mountains of St. Gothard, the snow- 
peaks of the Bernina, and the Monte Rosa chain, including 
the Matterhorn. 

The shores of Maggiore, lofty and abrupt on the north, 
slope gently on the east, producing a series of charming land- 
scapes. The waters of the northern arm of this lake are green, 
of its southern arm deep blue. In one particular Maggiore 
surpasses, by far, all its rivals : it possesses alone the unique 
beauty of the Borromean Islands. 

The highways over the Stelvio and the Spliigen descend to 
Lake Como ; those of the St. Gothard and the Simplon to the 
Lago Maggiore. The St. Gothard route touches Lake Lugano 
also as it proceeds direct from Bellinzona to Milan. 

For more than half its entire length the Lake of Como is 
divided into two branches, of which the western retains the 
name of Como, while the eastern takes that of Lecco. Be- 
tween these branches, and overlooking them both, at their 
point of junction, rises a vine-clad, narrow promonotory, at the 
western base of which, and clambering up its precipitous side, 
lies the old town of Bellagio, with its palatial hotels and their 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 225 

ample gardens adjacent to the landing. Considered with respect 
to its natural and artificial embellishments, this is one of the 
loveliest spots in Italy, — one of the most delightful in the world. 

On the summit of the promontory, readied by a circuitous 
road, stands the Villa Serbelloni, amidst its grove of palms 
and its forest preserve of semi-tropical trees and plants, through 
the foliage of which exquisite glimpses are disclosed up and 
down the Lake of Como and its bewitching adjunct, the bay 
of Lecco. I ascended to this park one fair morning in the 
dying summer, when the sunlight had assumed its mellowest 
tone, — the tone which it assumes only in Italy, — and when, all 
over the hills, the grapes hung purpling on the vines. It was 
difficult to say which was fairest that morning, earth or heaven ; 
or which held the more delicate harmonies of color, the skies 
above or the woods and waters beneath. I studied the land- 
scape, as I would have studied one of Claude Lorraine's pict- 
ures, from different points of view, and in all its details of 
form, perspective, composition, color, and chiaroscuro ; for a 
picture it really was, more dexterous and lovely than human 
hand could have painted. I felt that I could never weary of 
contemplating it, — that its fascination could never cease to de- 
light me, — that it would be happiness enough to simply exist 
in such a place, and dream one's life away amidst such 
enchanting scenes. 

A little incident which took place at the Grand Hotel 
awakened some less pleasing reflections. Upon announcing 
my purpose to cross the lake by canoe to Menaggio, I was 
beset and annoyed by the hotel people with importunities to 
hire one of their boats. It seemed strange that so much ado 
should be made about a matter of so little importance. I had 
already engaged a barque, and proposed to keep the engage- 
ment, whether my tormentors were pleased or not. It was 
kept. My sturdy boatman pushed off, heedless of the wrath 
and discomfiture of his hotel-favored fellow-craftsmen, from 
P 



226 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

whose clamor we quickly glided away, both in distance and in 
thought. Our little winged shallop swam with the grace of 
a bird upon the azure waters, whose tranquil, delicately-tinted 
loveliness, soothing and drowning the very remembrance of 
human care, made me wish the voyage might have been many 
times as long. At Menaggio I took a one-horse fiacre — the 
Italian equivalent of the Tyrolese 1 Einspanner — for the over- 
land journey to Porlezza, at the eastern extremity of Lake 
Lugano. From the landing at Menaggio the road ascends to 
the village of Croce, from whence a most pleasing retrospect 
was had of the lake, serenely slumbering in the vast security 
of its mountain cradle. From Croce we descended amidst 
vine-dressed hills, skirting lofty mountains, to the village and 
delicious little lake of Piano, and thence to Porlezza. The 
little afternoon steamer for Lugano had already departed, but 
a fleet of clumsy canoes lay along the beach awaiting the call 
of transient travellers. It was four o'clock in the afternoon 
when the barefooted, bare-breasted boatman who had con- 
tracted to transport me to Lugano pushed off from the pebbly 
strand, and drove his lubberly keel through the bright waters, 
so pure and tranquil that it seemed profane to disturb them. 
The very atmosphere was peace, and the evening light fell 
serenely upon the mountains, whose majestic forms, rising 
from the lake, stood as bulwarks to the calm which slumbered 
in its depths. Slowly Porlezza, with its green setting of vines 
and chestnut-trees, receded behind us ; slowly the shapely 
cone of Monte Salvatore disclosed itself far in front. Our 
progress was slow, to be sure, but not tedious, for each 
moment developed new and never-ceasing witcheries of land- 
scape loveliness, making the whole voyage seem like a trance, 
filled with beautiful dreams. No rude sound marred it, for 
no sound was heard except the plash of our oars and the 
occasional music of vesper bells floating out upon the water 
from an unseen church or village. 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 227 

Two hours' rowing from Porlezza brought us to the Swiss 
boundary, which crosses the lake near its middle, and wanders 
aimlessly about over the country, without regard to its topo- 
graphical features. The arbitrary caprices of this scientific 
boundary are bewildering to the traveller, who may change 
political jurisdictions half a dozen times a day in this region, 
never knowing, except by inquiry, what country he is in, or 
what currency he shall use. In discussing this subject a 
Swiss said to me, " I suppose our government would be just 
as well off if it were to give up these two southern cantons 
[Ticino and Valais], for it costs more to maintain the line of 
custom-houses than these cantons are really worth to us." 

Night was closing upon the lake when, as we rounded a 
little garden-covered peninsula, we descried, straight away, a 
long line of gas-lights reflected on the surface of the water. 
Half an hour later we moored our barque close by the shimmer 
of those lights, under the deep night-shadow of Monte Salva- 
tore. Above us was the sound of voices, — the voices of even- 
ing promenaders on the quay of Lugano. 

The town of Lugano is so thoroughly Italian in character 
that we can scarcely believe it to be Swiss. Yet Swiss it is, 
for the fantastic boundary of the canton Ticino manages some- 
how to curve around it and take it in. The climate, the 
vegetation, the scenery, and the language and appearance of 
the people of this region are all of a pronounced Italian type. 
The lower hills are spread with vineyards and gardens, sur- 
rounding elegant country-seats ; the higher ones, graduating 
up to the rock-ribbed, snow-capped mountains, are dressed in 
the darker foliage of the chestnut and the walnut. In these 
sheltered, sunny valleys the lemon-tree and the orange are at 
home, the flowers of two blended zones unfold their splendors, 
the magnolia-tree flourishes, and the aloe puts forth its 
blossoms in the open air. Hither come the pleasure-seeking 
nobles and wealthy merchants of Lombardy and Piedmont, — 



228 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

here are seen the stately villas whose marble halls they have 
embellished with precious art, and. whose terraced gardens de- 
scend to the lambent, sky-tinted waters. Above, on the rock- 
bound heights, the scenery is that of Manzoni's mountain 
village ; below, amidst, the lakeside hills and vales, it is a 
striking realization of the words of Mignon : 

Knowest thou the land where the citron apples bloom, 
And oranges like gold in leafy gloom ? 
A gentle wind from the deep blue heaven blows, 
The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows : 
Knowest thou it then ? 

Knowest thou the house, its porch with pillars tall ? 
The rooms do glitter, glitters bright the hall, 
And marble statues stand, and look each one : 
******** 
Knowest thou it then ? 

Knowest thou the hill, the bridge that hangs on cloud? 
The mules in mist grope o'er each torrent loud; 
In caves lie coiled the dragon's ancient brood, 
The crag leaps down, and over it the flood : 
Knowest thou it then ? 

Detached from its natural surroundings, Lugano has not 
many attractions. With its narrow, granite-paved streets, 
long arcades, and open-air workshops, it has the ways and 
appearance of an old Italian town, albeit modified by some 
recent additions and embellishments. Its most famous pos- 
sessions are Luini's pictures, the chief one of which is a large 
fresco of the crucifixion. This grand masterpiece is hung as 
a screen in the old church of Santa Maria degli Angioli, once 
the chapel of a large monastery which is now used as a fash- 
ionable hotel. The picture is arranged, according to the an- 
tiquated style, in two sections, one above the other, the lower 
exhibiting the principal action, and the upper — on a diminished 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 229 

scale — its adjuncts. The figures, several hundred in number, 
and the details, equally multiplied, are drawn with admirable 
truth and power of expression. In the foreground, below, 
around three huge crosses, which rise to the top of the canvas, 
are grouped numerous figures, comprising Roman soldiers, on 
foot and on horseback, the holy women, with St. John, priests, 
officers, and the executioners, some of whom are raffling for 
the garments of Christ. In the upper section is seen the pro- 
cession to Calvary, in the midst of which the Saviour, bearing 
His cross, falls beneath its weight. The agony in the garden, 
the betrayal, the scourging, the entombment, and the ascension 
are also adjunctively portrayed, the whole being so combined 
and grouped as to produce a harmonious effect, and convey at 
a glance the complete history of the Passion. In the upper 
part of the picture a group of sorrowing angels hovers about 
the expiring Saviour, and the souls of the crucified thieves are. 
being rendered up, in the form of diminutive human figures, 
the one to a winged angel, the other to a hateful demon. 
Old-fashioned as it is in style, the work has all the charm of 
honest naturalness and conscientious simplicity. The human 
figures, although many, are each strongly individualized ; the 
animal painting, even to the dogs which accompany the soldiers, 
is superb. 

The finest group in the picture — one whose artistic merit has 
probably never been surpassed in any picture of this kind — 
is that of the women at the cross. The unspeakable sorrow 
and pathos of their quartette of agonized faces, as Mary falls 
swooning into the arms of her companions, are represented 
with transcendent art. In striking contrast with these, and 
with the sympathetic countenance of St. John, are the hard, 
malevolent faces of the priests, and the military indifference 
of the soldiers. 

Luini was a pupil of the great Leonardo, and, like him, 
painted the Last Supper. The pupil's work, more fortunate 

20 



230 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

than that of his master, has been far better car«d for and pre- 
served. It is now hung in this chapel. In his treatment of 
this subject, Luini has not equalled Leonardo, — no artist has, — 
but he has shown much of his great teacher's skill, if not 
power, of individualization. His figure of Christ is noble, 
dignified, apposite, and entirely worthy of the supreme occa- 
sion. Luini should be regarded as Leonardo's interpreter 
rather than his imitator or rival. 

A third work by this master, seen in the old monastery 
chapel at Lugano, is his Madonna, with the Christ-child and 
the infant St. John. In this charming picture — which is in 
truth one of the most graceful and unaffected of its kind — the 
innocence and beauty of childhood and the unapproachable 
dignity of motherhood are shown in their perfection. 

After quitting the pictures, I spent an hour strolling in 
Monsieur Chiani's delightful park by the lakeside. Two play- 
ful children, such as Luini might have chosen for his models, 
came to meet me at the portal, and volunteered to call the 
custodian, that I might view the grounds. A fascinating place 
to linger in was this semi-tropical sylvan retreat, with its 
stately colonnades of tree-stems, and its superabundance of 
foliage, rioting over the banks of the lake and dipping into 
its bright waters. 

The respect in which both Italians and Swiss hold the great 
name of Washington is strikingly attested at Lugano. Under- 
neath a handsome marble pavilion, erected in an appropriate 
and conspicuous space on the principal street, has been placed 
a portrait bust of our country's founder. The pedestal bears 
the inscription : Magnum sawulorum decus. 

A three hours' drive over the hills from Lugano brings us 
back into Italy, at Luino, one of the myriad summer resorts 
on Lake Maggiore. From thence a voyage of two hours and 
a half down the lake by steamer brought me to Baveno, which 
divides the honors with Stresa as a place of sojourn for 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 231 

strangers who wish to tarry in the vicinity of the Borromean 
Islands. Isola Bella, the most celebrated of these islands, may 
be reached from Baveno in half an hour by canoe, or in a few 
minutes by steamer. Originally this island was a naked rock ; 
now it is a decaying paradise. About two centuries ago the 
Count of Borromeo, from whom the group of four islands takes 
its name, undertook to make of Isola Bella, so far as money 
and art would go, the most beautiful spot in the world. He 
built upon it a great chateau, and converted the entire surface 
of the island, not occupied by buildings, into a garden, rising 
in terraces a hundred feet above the lake, mined with grottos, 
and profusely adorned with statuary, fountains, flowers, and 
with magnolias, oleanders, orange, camphor, cork, and other 
rare trees and plants of the semi-tropics. The count's design 
was never fully carried out, the chateau being still uncom- 
pleted and a part of it in ruins. The gardens are artificial and 
meaningless in taste ; the statuary is ordinary and superabun- 
dant ; and the chateau, commonplace and uninviting outside, 
is tawdrily gorgeous in its interior. But the prodigality of 
nature has surpassed here even that of the rich count, and the 
sun scarcely shines upon a fairer spot than Isola Bella. The in- 
terior splendors of the chateau seem tame beside the enchanting 
glimpses and views which are obtained from its corridors and 
balconies of the gardens, the lake, and the distant mountains. 
The part which this little island has played in history would 
make an interesting chapter. An attendant shows the beds in 
which Napoleon and Berthier slept a few nights before the 
battle of Marengo, and a tree is pointed out in the garden, 
the bark of which, it is said, formerly bore the great emperor's 
name, carved there by his own hand. Some blotted chapters 
in the life of an English queen are also mixed up with the 
glitter and luxury of these gay apartments, but let us not mar 
with such things the fair pictures made upon the memory by 
this gem of isles. Let us rather preserve, unimpaired by 



232 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

human frailties, the recollections of its vistas of cerulean 
water and snow-capped mountain ; of the fragrance of its 
flowers, the luxuriance of its foliage, and the incomparable 
beauty of its setting in the Alp-encircled lake, which makes 
it seem, in retrospect, more like a dream of fairy-land than an 
actual experience. 

While we were waiting for the steamer, one of my chance 
companions — an Englishman — unstrapped his portfolio and 
proceeded to make a sketch of the island. 

" Have you finished your sketch so soon ?" I iuquired, when 
he rejoined us a short time afterwards. " Yes, I have all the 
outlines," said he, putting his things together. " The rest I 
can put in from memory." " And do you color your sketches ?" 
I inquired. " Yes, I do that at home." " You have a most 
valuable accomplishment," said I, " and one of which I could 
heartily envy you." " I obtain a great deal of pleasure from 
,it," he rejoined. " When I come to Italy and Switzerland, as 
I do nearly every summer, I seek the unfrequented paths and 
unvisited places among the mountains, making sketches as I go 
along, until I obtain a new stock such as no one else has. To 
complete them occupies my leisure time during the rest of the 
year, and affords me agreeable recreation." 

It was not a professional artist who thus spoke, but a plain 
man of affairs, whose practical qualities were happily balanced 
by a liberal training and an ardent love of nature. 

Intending to cross the Alps by the St. Gothard route, going 
northward, I embarked at Baveno upon one of the regular up- 
going steamers for Locarno. As these steamers touch at all 
the principal landings on both sides of the lake, they cross it, 
back and forth, many times in the course of a voyage. This 
fact is not to be regretted when the weather is fair, for delight- 
ful scenes are sure to greet the eye wherever we touch the 
shores of lovely Maggiore. On both sides, scores of pretty 
villages, snow-white in deep-green setting, gleam along the 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. QOTHARD. 233 

margin of the lake, reflected often in its pellucid waters ; 
numberless white cottages and villas shine upon the hill-sides 
amidst the rich foliage of the vine, the myrtle, the olive, and 
the pomegranate. Surely if Nature offers auywhere an ideal 
home-land, where sky, earth, and water are alike endowed with 
the power of enchantment, and life is one loug poetic dream, 
it is here. No wonder somebody has said of it that " its very 
weeds are beautiful." 

Locarno, a Swiss town politically, but Italian in every other 
respect, looks upon the azure lake from a background of hills 
dressed with orange-trees and festooned with vines. From 
here the St. Gothard Railway carried me to Biasca, from whence 
I proceeded by carriage. From Biasca to the southern ex- 
tremity of the great tunnel, at Airolo, the railway and wagon- 
road crowd each other in the narrow valley, the ancient 
prerogatives of the wagon-way being often seized and appro- 
priated by its more exacting rival. In some cases the older 
track has been obliged to abandon its prescriptive rights and take 
to the hills. These aggressions of the locomotive are readily 
excused, however, when we observe, as can be done best from 
the wagon-road, the enormous difficulties of carrying a railway 
up such a valley as that of the Upper Ticino. If anything 
could surpass the grandeur of the St. Gothard Pass, it is that 
of the gigantic undertaking of building a practicable track for 
the locomotive from one side of it to the other. Of all the 
engineering triumphs yet accomplished by man this is the 
chief. More dazzling, even, than the march of Hannibal or 
Napoleon over the ice-battlemented crests of the Alps is this 
beneficent, triumphant march of industry, science, and skill. 

The greatest single task in this stupendous undertaking was 
that of tunnelling the range ; but a work of no less difficulty, 
considered in all its details, was that of carrying the track up 
to the main tunnel, on either side of the mountain. An im- 
pressive observation of this fact may be made at Faido, on the 

20* 



234 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

southern side of the range, and at Wasen, on the northern. 
Near Faido the valley, or rather gorge, of the Tioino suddenly 
contracts, forming a bench which rises abruptly several hun- 
dred feet. The railway, approaching this rocky wall, enters a 
tunnel at its base, and no more is seen of it until it emerges at 
the summit of the bench, haviug made the ascent by a spiral 
course underground. A like feat, more wonderful still, is 
accomplished at Wasen. 

The St. Gothard route is one of the most anciently known 
of the Alpine passes, and far surpasses all the others in the 
magnificence of its scenery. It remained a mere bridle-path 
until the roads over the Simplon, the Bernardino, and the 
Spliigen were built, after which time it was almost deserted 
until the bridle-path was superseded by the present highway, 
nineteen feet wide, completed in 1832. During four or five 
months of the year, beginning with June, this road is prac- 
ticable for carriages, although large quantities of snow often 
remain upon it, or near it, in the early summer. In winter 
the range may be crossed on sledges, except after a heavy 
snow-fall, when, for a week at a time, no communication may 
be possible. 

The finest of the scenery is on the southern slope. The 
towns, their inhabitants, and the vegetation retain their Italian 
character as far up as Airolo, from whence the road mounts 
like a vast ladder, up the treeless face of the range, into the 
clouds. A heavy shower came on just as we began this part 
of the ascent, but gave place to a cold, nebulous atmosphere, 
without rain, when we had risen a thousand feet higher. At 
the summit, masses of white vapor were flying before the 
wind, which was raw and violent. Under the lead-colored, 
rayless skies, the barren, wintry scenes around the hospice 
looked dreary in the extreme. We quitted them without 
regret, and descended rapidly, amidst rain and darkness, to 
Andermatt. 



THE SPLUOEN THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 235 

The following morning, the weather being fair, I descended 
by an early diligence from Andermatt to Wasen. The 
stupendous escarpments of the narrow valley in which that 
village lies were brilliantly illuminated on the one side by the 
rising sun, and on the other deeply shadowed by the penumbra 
of the mountains. On a promontory which rises on the south 
side of the village stands a little church, the terrace of which 
commands a magnificent view up and down the vast ravine 
through which the Reuss pours its troubled waters. The 
valley descends rapidly here, like that of the Ticino at Faido, 
presenting enormous difficulties to the builders of the railway, 
who have carried up the line some hundreds of feet in a spiral 
course, including several curved tunnels, lofty iron viaducts, 
and galleries cut into the ledges of overhanging rock. Seen 
from the little church at Wasen, the locomotive, coming up the 
valley, penetrates the mountain far below, emerges again far 
above, crosses and turns down the valley along its western 
wall, leaps over a tremendous chasm, darts through projecting 
buttresses of rock, disappears, returns again on a far higher 
plane, and skims away towards Goschenen, laughing at the 
mighty barriers with which Nature has vainly crossed the path 
of its ambition. 

Sublime is this work, but sublimer still are the genius and 
energy which have accomplished it. 

Returning, on foot, from Wasen to Andermatt, I halted, on 
the way, at Goschenen, situated at the mouth of the wild and 
beautiful Goschenenthal, at the head of which the white shield 
of the Dammafirn glacier was seen gleaming in the morning 
sunlight. Opposite to the village the great tunnel pierces the 
range, appearing as we approach it, coming up the valley, like 
a black spot on the side of the mountain. Near the entrance 
were the buildings containing the machinery for compressing the 
air by which the boring apparatus was driven inside the tunnel. 
This machinery — now employed in compressing air for ven- 



236 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

tilating purposes, and for propelling traction engines inside the 
tunnel — is driven by the torrent of the Reuss, which, in part, 
is diverted from its natural bed and made to pour for a quarter 
of a mile through an immense iron pipe. Descending from 
an altitude of some hundreds of feet, the water strikes the 
company's wheels with tremendous force, furnishing a driving 
power greater, it is claimed, than could be obtained by steam. ' 
An attendant explains to visitors the operations of the great 
air-compressors, which are exceedingly curious and interesting. 
A perforating machine, such as was used in the tunnel, is also 
kept ready, and upon request is made to drill a hole in the 
natural rock which forms the inner wall of the building. 

The tunnel is nine and one-third miles long, — a mile and 
five-eighths longer than that through Mont Cenis. Although 
cut by parties working simultaneously from each side of the 
range, it is perfectly straight from end to end, the engineers, 
approaching from opposite directions, having met each other 
with such accuracy that their centre lines varied scarcely a 
hand's-breadth from an exact coincidence. The ascent from 
the entrance at Goschenen is one hundred and forty-eight feet, 
and from the entrance at Airolo thirty feet. The summit of 
the tunnel lies nine hundred and ninety feet below the surface 
of the ground at Andermatt, and six thousand six hundred 
feet beneath the peak of Castellhorn, of the St. Gothard group 
of mountains. The interior, which has a width of twenty-six 
and a half feet — sufficient for a double track — and a height 
of nineteen feet ten inches, is lined with masonry throughout, 
the sides being laid in ashlar, and the roof, which is a semi- 
circle in cross-section, being arched with dressed granite. It 
was at first intended to let the natural rock constitute the 
vaulting, but the suggestion of an engineer that a single stone 
falling from the roof upon a passenger carriage might create 
a popular impression that the tunnel was unsafe, led to the 
determination to line the whole. 



THE SPLUGEN, THE LAKES, AND ST. GOTHARD. 237 

There are no air-shafts in the tunnel, its two entrances being 
its only openings. At intervals of one hundred metres there 
are small square cavities for the deposit of implements, and 
at every kilometre (ten hundred and ninety yards) there are 
spaces in the side walls large enough to hold about a dozen 
men. A few hundred yards from the Goschenen entrance the 
so-called mauvais endroit — bad place — was encountered, where, 
for a distance of two hundred and forty feet, the cutting was 
made through a stratum of soft, plastic material, the constant 
caving in of which presented almost insuperable difficulties. 
Costly expedients were resorted to, and an immense amount of 
money was spent upon them, but in vain ; some offended genie 
of the mountain seemed to be spitefully thwarting all the 
pertinacity of toil and all the tricks of science. Massive 
linings of masonry were bulged in like paper, compelling the 
workmen to flee for their lives. For three years the battle 
went on, Monsieur Favre, the contractor for the tunnel, mean- 
while dropping dead from apoplexy, caused by anxiety, while 
watching the progress of the contest. At length, by herculean 
effort, the sliding in was arrested, the persecuting genie ap- 
peased or put to flight, and the mauvais endroit, finally lined 
with masonry in the form of an elliptical cylinder, was made 
as secure as any part of the tunnel. 

Upward-going from Goschenen we soon leave behind us all 
traces of the railway, and enter the lonely defile of the 
Schollenen, through which dashes the impetuous Eeuss, over- 
hung by lofty and nearly perpendicular walls of granite. The 
road, much exposed here to avalanches, ascends by many in- 
genious curvatures this narrow ravine, and reaches, between 
three and four miles from Goschenen, an ideally wild and deso- 
late spot, surrounded by towering cliffs and beetling crags 
which almost exclude the sun. Here the foamy, boisterous 
Reuss, bringing with it the gathered waters of the Furca and 
St. Gothard glaciers, leaps over a precipice, and falls with 



238 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

thunderous roar into a rocky abyss a hundred feet in depth. 
The road crosses this abyss by the famous Devil's Bridge, 
which spans by a single arch the roaring chasm. The spray 
from the cataract rises to this bridge, and, when the sunbeams 
fall on it, glitters with all the colors of the rainbow. 

A short distance above the Devil's Bridge we emerge through 
the narrow gate-way of the defile into the beautiful, sequestered 
valley of Urseren, spread with green pastures, watered by the 
Reuss, and surrounded by snow-capped mountains. In the 
lower part of the valley the village of Andermatt rises amidst 
the meadows, and in the upper part the village of Hospenthal. 
Standing upon an eminence near the latter place, an ancient 
tower, said to be the remnant of a castle built by the Lom- 
bards, forms one of the most conspicuous objects in the land- 
scape. The old church at Andermatt, with its annex adorned 
with human skulls, on which inscriptions are written, is said 
to date also from the Lombard period. 

Before the Reuss broke its way through the gorge of the 
Schollenen, this valley was doubtless a lake. Its winter lasts 
eight months, and even during its brief summer fires are often 
necessary. Three great Alpine routes radiate from the valley : 
that leading eastward by the Ober-Alp and the Vorder-Rhein 
to Coire ; the St. Gothard route to Italy ; and the road going 
westward to the Furca Pass and the Rhone glacier, in the 
Upper Valais. Returning towards the St. Gothard from 
Andermatt, and passing, on the left, the old tower at Hospen- 
thal, I set out on foot for the Furca. 



OVER THE FURCA TO MEIRINGEN. 239 

CHAPTER XV. 

OVER THE FURCA TO MEIRINGEN". 

A monotonous walk of an hour and a half brought me to 
Realp, at the western extremity of the Urserenthal. Here the 
valley shrinks to a ravine, and the road begins to ascend the 
Furca range, which it mounts by a stupendous ladder of fan- 
tastic zigzags cut into the face of the mountain. The old 
bridle-path pursues its way along the gorge at a much lower 
altitude. By some evil spirit I was beguiled into taking the 
path instead of the road, in the expectation of saving distance. 
The chalet seen far up in the sky on top of the Furca served 
as a general point of direction. The path was miserably 
rough, and as lonely as it could be. Anxious to abandon it 
and get back to the road, I sought information from a couple 
of vagrant cow-herds whom I happened to encounter, but their 
ignorance and stupidity were impenetrable. I then undertook, 
on my own account, a divergence from the path, hoping to 
reach the road, the telegraph-poles beside which could be seen 
in aerial array far up the grassy side of the mountain. 

After mounting about five hundred feet, I heard a juvenile 
voice far below shouting a note of warning. It was that of a 
young cow-herd, who was kind enough to come up to me and 
tell me that I could never reach the road in that direction, but 
must get back to the path if I hoped to ascend the Furca. 
My next attempt was to descend again, bearing off obliquely 
so as to gain distance to the front, but again a warning was 
sounded in my ears, this time from above, where men were 
seen swinging their hats, and shouting as if they were frantic. 
Unable to make out what they meant, I kept on, and soon 
found myself on the brink of a ravine through which a glacier 



240 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

torrent, too deep for fording, poured down the mountain. 
There was no alternative but to go back to the path, and avail 
myself of the rude bridge by which it crossed the ravine. Some 
hours later, thoroughly fatigued, I reached the hospice at the 
summit of the Furca, eight thousand feet above sea-level. 

The road over this pass, like those over the Simplon, the 
Spliigen, and the Stelvio, was built mainly for military pur- 
poses, and, next to the Stelvio, is the loftiest wagon-road in the 
Alps. The pass, seldom wholly free from snow, takes its 
name from its situation, between two peaks resembling the 
prongs of a fork (furca). It descends abruptly on both sides, 
eastward towards the valley of Urseren, and westward towards 
the glacier and valley of the Rhone. The sources of the 
Rhine — two leagues distant — lie on one side of it, those of 
the Rhone on the other. 

After half an hour's rest I climbed a peak, forming one 
of the prongs of the fork, in order to witness the sunset. The 
panorama before me embraced the vast central range of the 
Alps, from Monte Rosa and the Matterhorn abutting upon the 
distant horizon on the left, to the huge, snowy pyramid of the 
Wetterhorn, far to the right, the intermediate line being 
traced, irregularly, by the glittering peaks of the Mischabel, 
the Weisshorn, the Aletschhorn, the Jungfrau, the Shreckhorn, 
and — sublimely pre-eminent over all — " the mighty mass of 
the Finsteraarhorn, — the monarch of the Oberland." Em- 
blazoned with the flaming splendors of the declining sun, this 
magnificent array of Alpine giants, with their intervening 
snow-fields and glaciers, presented a scene indescribably grand. 
No words can portray its glorious transformations of light and 
color as the sun slid below the horizon. The mighty wedge 
of the Matterhorn, far to the south-west, became a wedge of 
gold, tinged with purple, while the perpetual snow mantle of 
Monte Rosa changed to a robe of delicate flush and crimson. 
For a few moments the fiery glow swept with changing splen- 



OVER THE FURCA TO MEIRINGEN. 241 

dors along the entire range of errnined giants, then slowly 
gave place to that almost supernatural, lily-like whiteness, 
which, like the cereus, unfolds its perfect beauty only under 
the canopy of night. Shortly before sunset a dense mass of 
cottony vapor lay wedged in the narrow gorge of the Reuss, 
far beneath the hospice, its shapely volumes seeming almost 
motionless in the shadow of the range. But as the atmosphere 
cooled, the mass began to rise, slowly at first, then more and 
more rapidly, until it reached, and soared above, the level of 
the pass, and being caught by au upper current, was whirled 
over the range in ragged fragments, like the broken, flying 
phalanxes of a routed army. 

My vis-ci-vis at the hospice supper-table that evening was 
an English lady, young and handsome but unassuming, who 
narrated with much enthusiasm the story of her day's adven- 
tures on the mountain. She had found, she said, some rare 
and beautiful Alpine plants, which she described, stating with 
precision their botanical names and relations. A man having 
her evident knowledge of the fauna and flora of the Alps 
would have been taken for a scientist. Her appearance indi- 
cated the strength and vigor of perfect health, showing that 
her physical training had been no whit behind that of her re- 
fined and beautiful mind. The race and country have much 
to be proud of, and hopeful for, which can produce such lovely, 
accomplished, and weather-proof types of womanhood. 

Seven miles from the summit of the Furca, and more than 
two thousand feet below it, a torrent of muddy snow-water issues 
from beneath prodigious masses of ice. This is the infant Rhone 
of to-day, — the Rhodanus of the ancients, said to pour from 
the gates of eternal night, " at the foot of the pillar of the 
sun." The lofty cavern out of which this torrent first issues 
into the light of day is formed in the crystalline mass of 
fissured ice which terminates the Rhone glacier, — one of the 
largest and in some respects the finest glacier in the Alps. A 
l q 21 



242 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

few hundred yards below the ice-fall, three warm springs gush 
from the earth and join the glacier stream, which, descending 
from its birthplace in the mountains, expands into a broad and 
beautiful river, and after coursing five hundred miles through 
historic lands, and past historic cities, pours into the Medi- 
terranean. 

The morning following my sojourn in the eyrie of the Furca 
was as bright and cheery as its preceding sunset had been 
splendid. Taking a guide, I started early for the Rhone 
glacier, intending to cross it above the ice-fall, mount the 
heights beyond it, and descend to the Grimsel hospice. The 
heights just mentioned terminate in an irregular, craggy crest, 
— eight thousand four hundred feet, — from which, in 1799, the 
French, having made a flank march, poured upon the Austrians 
intrenched below on the Grimsel, and drove them into the 
Valais. In the neighborhood lies a small, solitary lake into 
which were tossed the bodies of those slain in the battle, and 
which is to this day known as the Lake of the Dead. 

In order to reach the glacier, I turned from the road and 
followed a path around the face of the mountain, from which 
could be seen the whole chain of snow-peaks from Monte 
Rosa to the Wetterhorn, gleaming and dazzling against the un- 
clouded sky. The heavens were blue, but not of that deep, 
dark color often observed from the Alps, indicating an atmos- 
phere heavily charged with transparent vapor, and ready, on 
slight provocation, to precipitate its moisture. The blue was 
of a light cerulean tint, — a fair-weather omen, — forming a 
most pleasing contrast with the white peaks and snow-fields 
glowing with the early sunbeams. 

We descended to the glacier on its eastern side, passing over 
masses of broken granite, among which I picked up some 
beautiful quartz crystals. The huge ice-current, upon the hard, 
spiny surface of which we landed, courses down from its nevt 
on the Wmterberg for a distance of fifteen miles. Longfellow 



OVER THE FURCA TO MEIRINQEN. 243 

has aptly compared its shape to that of a gauntlet, of which 
the gorge represents the wrist, and the lower glacier — falling 
terrace-like and cloven by fissures — the hand. Its ice-fall, 
composed of immense slabs of pure blue ice sliced away from 
the main body by lateral fissures, resembles a gigantic frozen 
cataract. Sometimes a peculiar noise is heard, intermittently 
rising and falling within the ice-mass, like the snore of a 
sleeping monster. This noise is supposed to be produced by 
the rush of air and water forced through the interior passages 
of the glacier. 

The upper part of the ice-current, at the point where we 
undertook to cross it, was fissured in all directions, the clefts 
varying in depth from fifteen to thirty feet. Sometimes we 
were obliged to move on all-fours in order to make our way 
through the treacherous maze of slippery- walled pits and 
chasms. Having crossed the glacier, we climbed to the sum- 
mit of Nageli's Gratli, from which we looked down into the 
vast rocky basin known as the Grimselgrund, within which 
the infant Aar — a swift-flowing tributary of the Rhine — is 
cradled. Here, on this rocky ridge forming the boundary be- 
tween two races, — Latin and Teuton, — and where, nearly a 
century ago, they grappled with each other in their traditional 
feud, the waters also are divided which form the great historic 
rivers along which those races dwell. 

" This Grimsel is a weird region," says Professor Tyndall ; 
"a monument carved with hieroglyphics more ancient and 
more grand than those of Nineveh or the Nile. . . . All 
around are evidences of the existence and the might of the 
glaciers which once held possession of the place. All around 
the rocks are carved, and fluted, and polished, and scored. 
Here and there angular pieces of quartz, held fast by the ice, 
inserted their edges into the rocks and scratched them like 
diamonds." The entire basin is surrounded by naked walls 
of granite, on which these striations are traced to the height 



244 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

of two thousand feet. On the Grimsel Pass, the striated sur- 
faces extend clear to the summit of the Maienwand, and are 
sometimes polished as smooth, almost, as glass by the action 
of the ice. Above the line of glacial action the rocks are 
angular and rugged. 

Two thousand three hundred feet below our position on 
Nageli's Gratli lay the Grimsel hospice, — a lonely chalet habita- 
ble only in summer. Adown the precipices which rise from 
the hospice to the Gratli we clambered by a wretched path so 
steep that great care was necessary to avoid falling. At the bot- 
tom we found ourselves confronted by a small lake, but boatmen 
who had observed our descent were waiting for us, and for a few 
centimes carried us over. After resting awhile at the hospice 
I started alone down the Haslithal, following a good bridle- 
path constructed and kept in order by the canton. During 
the first part of the descent from the Grimsel the valley is 
narrow, crooked, and magnificently wild. On both sides rise 
immense buttresses and walls of bare, storm-beaten rock, on 
which very little vegetation of any kind was to be seen. Two 
huts of the rudest character were the only human habitations 
which diversified the first three hours of my solitary walk 
down the ravine. I was alone with Nature, in her sublimest 
aspects and blandest mood. The atmosphere was tranquil, the 
firmament bright and crystalline, the valley here glowing with 
sunshine and there deeply shadowed by the dark penumbra of 
the mountains. Beside my path the turbid Aar brawled 
ceaselessly in its rocky bed, sometimes churning itself into 
foamy fury as it rushed with headlong fret down some steep 
incline, and sometimes describing a graceful, misty parabola 
as it leaped into an abysm. 

Two hours from the hospice, vegetation began to appear in 
the form of mosses, rhododendrons, and dwarf pines ; and in 
three hours I reached Handeck, — the first settlement below 
the Grimsel, — surrounded by beautiful groves of pine and 



OVER THE FURCA TO MEIRINGEN. 245 

cedar. The Handeck fall, famous the world over, is unique 
among Swiss cataracts. Next to the fall of the Tosa, in the 
Val Formazza, and the Rhine-fall at Schaffhausen, it is the 
grandest cascade in the Swiss Alps. A wooden bridge which 
spans the torrent just above the fall affords a good view of the 
Aar as it comes plunging down over the ledges, and makes its 
magnificent leap into a narrow chasm two hundred and fifty 
feet in depth. The silvery current of the Erlenbach, de- 
scending from the left, falls first upon a projecting rock, then 
plunges at, and joins in its descent, the gray glacier torrent of 
the Aar, the two mingling and writhing like contending 
dragons as they go down together into the dark, misty abyss. 
The water of the Erlenbach being clear, and that of the Aar 
muddy, the penetration of the one through the other can be 
distinctly traced. Loose stones, carried down by the impetuous 
waters, are constantly descending with them. The best view 
of the fall is not had from the bridge, but from a projecting 
rock below it. The Aar descends in an unbroken mass, but 
nearly half of the cataract is concealed by dense volumes of 
spray which rise constantly from the abyss. Beautiful rain- 
bows are formed upon this spray when — only possible for a 
brief part of the day — the sunbeams penetrate the gorge. 

Below Handeck the ravine of the Aar contracts, and its 
rock-ribbed sides are diversified with patches of fir forest, 
whose very dark green color is changed to inky blackness 
when thrown into shadow. The path is sometimes very steep ; 
the mountains as we go downward, ever downward, appear 
loftier and more massive ; the fretted current of the Aar 
churns itself upon the rocks until it is white as frost. Im- 
mense masses of loose stones strewn along the basin of the 
valley, or hanging precariously upon its slopes, mark plainly 
the lines of ancient glacial action. Guttannen, the first vil- 
lage, is surrounded by meadows whose velvety surfaces are 
disfigured by great heaps of rocky debris which the peasants 

21* 



246 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

have gathered up in trying to give the grass a chance to 
grow. 

At an inn reached after a down-hill walk of seven hours 
from the hospice, the bridle-path developed into a post-road, 
and I was able to relieve my jaded muscles by engaging an 
Einspanner to Meiringen. From the inn the road descends 
gently into a fertile basin forming the pretty parish of Innert- 
kirchen, below which a rock-strewn ridge known as the Kirchet 
crosses the valley like a huge dam. Through this ridge the 
Aar has cut a narrow passage in the limestone rock, forming 
one of the finest gorges in Switzerland. From the basin of In- 
nertkirchen — evidently once a lake — the road ascends by the 
usual windings to the summit of the Kirchet, from whence, look- 
ing towards the north, a magnificent scene bursts upon us. The 
basin of the Aar, expanded to a breadth of three miles, is 
flanked on both sides by majestic mountains, whose rounded 
forms stand in serried lines, their slopes dressed with timber 
and their summits tipped with snow. In the foreground, sur- 
rounded by meadows and gardens, lies the village of Meiringen, 
beyond and below which, in far perspective, the valley tapers 
down, in lines of beauty, to the azure waters of Lake Brienz. 
Farther on, in the same direction, the vision sweeps far into 
the Bernese Oberland, whose massive Alpine monarchs are 
tinted with imperial purple and crowned with sunset gold. 

Amid the vast, far-reaching grandeur of this glorious land- 
scape one object, more than all others, fascinates the eye and 
fixes the attention : it is the splendid cataract of the Reichen- 
bach, which comes plunging out of the bosom of the moun- 
tains, a thousand feet or more above the meandering and, at 
last, tranquil current of the Aar. Springing from a giddy 
ledge, the crystal flood falls, white as milk, adown the pine- 
clad cliff and, striking a sloping surface far below, makes 
another wild bound, as if maddened with delirious ecstasy. 
As seen from the summit of the Kirchet, this superb volume 



THE HASLI-SCHEIDECK, ETC. 247 

of water — gushing, palpitating, and falling in mid-air, like 
liquid silver, while valley, river, and lake below and the 
eragged summits above were suffused in mellow evening radi- 
ance — reminded me more strikingly than anything I had ever 
seen of the poetic transports of Tennyson : 

The splendor falls on castle walls 

And snowy summits old in story ; 
The long light shakes across the lakes, 

And the wild cataract leaps in glory. 
Blow, bugle, blow, set the wild echoes flying ; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 

Oh, hark, oh, hear! how thin and clear, 

And thinner, clearer, farther going ; 
Oh, sweet and far, from cliff and scar, 

The horns of Elfland faintly blowing ! 
Blow, let us hear the purple glens replying ; 
Blow, bugle ; answer, echoes, dying, dying, dying. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE HASLI-SCHEIDECK:, THE FAULHOKN, AND THE SCHYNIGE 

PLATTE. 

In fair weather there are few pedestrian excursions in 
Switzerland more interesting than that from Meiringen to 
Grindelwald, over the Hasli-Scheideck. It was at the dawn 
of an ideally-lovely September morning that I set out from 
the Hotel du Reichenbach on this tour. Not a speck of cloud 
could be seen in the whole dome of the sky as I quitted the 
hotel and began to ascend the heights near by. The atmos- 
phere was fresh and fragrant ; the grass sparkled with dew ; 
the glowing effulgence of dawn quivered upon the mountains. 



248 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Near to the ascending path the thunderous cataract of the 
Reichenbach plunged in wild riot of silvery waters, the spray 
from which, floating out into the sunlight, glittered with rain- 
bows and fell in showers of mist. 

Like the torrent at Krimml, that of the Reichenbach makes 
three separate leaps from the mountain before it reaches its 
channel in the valley. The lowest fall comes down near the 
Hotel du Reichenbach, and, like the Giessbach, is illuminated 
by the hotel people on summer evenings. The finest fall is 
the second, or middle one, whose magnificent leap from its green 
ambuscade on the mountain has already been described. 
Darting like an arrow over the precipice, the wild waters 
spring into the air, then descend in one mass gracefully as 

A feather wafted downward 
From an eagle in its flight. 

This part of the fall produces by far the best effect when 
seen from a distance ; some licensed showmen who have taken 
possession of it have fixed the near-by points of view to suit 
their own purposes. The same is true of the upper fall, the ap- 
proaches to which are also guarded by people who exact money 
for the sight of this beautiful phenomenon of nature. But the 
scenes outspread before us as we look down from the heights 
make amends for this annoyance. Before these no curtain can 
be drawn. In the opposite direction other scenes, still more 
attractive, come into view at the summit of the fall. As the 
path ascends the deep gorge of the Reichenbach, suddenly, 
like an apparition, a huge white mass rises behind its forest 
screen, and discloses itself in dazzling silhouette against the 
sky. It is the gigantic pyramid of the Wetterhorn, apparently 
near at hand, although fifteen miles distant. Around it cluster 
the bare, gray summits of the Wellborn, the Engelhorn, and 
various other peaks which rise amid the glaciers borne upon 
the mighty shoulders of the Jungfrau, the Shreckhorn, and 



THE HASLI-SCHEIDECK, ETC. 249 

the Finsteraarhorn. Seen, radiant with morning sunbeams, 
as we rise from the deep shadows of the gorge, these noble 
mountains form the background to a picture of surpassing 
beauty and grandeur. 

As I turned into the wooded defiles of the pass, the echoes 
of an Alpine horn rang out, bounding and rebounding from 
cliff to cliff until they died faintly on the far-off summits. 
A couple of pedestrians — one of them a rosy-cheeked German 
Frdulein — approached the horn-blower from above at the same 
time that I came up from .below. " Das 1st schon," exclaimed 
Fraulein, with a roguish smile, as she tossed a few sous to the 
volunteer musician. " Aber blasen Sle noch ! blasen Sie noeh !" 
she added, as she skipped away with the alertness of a chamois. 
If the man had not been as insensate as a stone, such an appeal 
would have kept him blowing straight away for half an hour 
at least. As it was, he put up his horn and gave his lungs a 
rest for the next customer. 

For two hours my path lay along the mossy banks of the 
Reichenbach, at first amid groves of deciduous trees, then 
through sunny meadows, alternating with sombre forests of 
pine and fir. At the head of a ravine branching to the left 
the Rosenlaui glacier disclosed itself, descending from an im- 
mense neve, in the direction of which the thunder of falling 
avalanches was occasionally heard. The ice of this glacier is 
singularly pure and clean, owing* to the firmness of its bed of 
black limestone rock. The baths of Rosenlaui, with their 
jaunty-looking summer hotel, opposite the glacier, offer many 
attractions for a restful sojourn. 

Above the timber-line, an hour beyond the baths, we enter 
the upper mountain pastures, ascending which for half an 
hour we arrive at the summit of the Hasli-Scheideck. Di- 
rectly opposite to the pass rises, almost perpendicularly, the- 
gigantic rock-mass of the Wetterhorn, from whose precipices 
the avalanches fall in four different directions. From the 



250 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

ridge we look eastward into the ravine of the Reichenbach, 
meandering down to the Haslithal ; westward, into the deep 
valley of the Grindelwald, lined with forests and pastures, and 
surrounded by a magnificent pageant of snow-capped mountains. 

From the hospice on the Scheideck the beaten path descends 
to the hamlet of Grindelwald, opposite the two glaciers of that 
name ; a less-frequented route leads along the timberless 
mountain-slopes on the right towards the lofty and isolated 
peak known as the Faulhorn. Choosing the latter route, I 
set out from the hospice with a guide, and after an hour's 
walk reached a point in front of which the great snow-range 
rose in full view from the Wetterhorn to the Jungfrau, and 
beyond. Without incident, we pursued our way over the soli- 
tary meadowy slopes until, towards evening, the base of the 
rounded cone of the Faulhorn was reached. An ascent of an 
hour's duration brought us to the lonely chalet which squats 
under the lee of the short, sharp ridge forming the summit of 
this isolated peak. 

The Faulhorn is a tolerably symmetrical mass of black, fis- 
sured, calcareous rock, the crumbling appearance of which 
gives the mountain its name. On its southern face it is steep, 
though sloping ; on its northern face it drops two thousand 
feet from its crest, almost perpendicularly. Its pinnacle — 
eight thousand eight hundred feet, two thousand nine hundred 
feet higher than the Rigi Kulm — surveys the whole vast range 
of snowy Alps, from Lake Geneva on the west to Lakes 
Lucerne and Zug on the east. From this eyrie, which lies 
within the zone of almost perpetual winter, the eye sweeps 
over nearly the whole breadth of the Bernese Oberland, and 
covers nearly every important lake in Switzerland. While 
viewing the sunset from the bald, bleak pinnacle, we were ex- 
posed to a strong wind so piercing cold that we were glad to 
seek the cheerful fireside of the chalet as soon as the pageant 
was over. 



THE HASLI-SCHEIDECK, ETC. 231 

The next morning broke brightlv, favoring; with radiant 
skies my descent towards Interlaken. Starting from the chalet, 
the path circled steeply downward, around the shelvy Faul- 
horn, to the Sagisthal See, — a small lake lying about two 
thousand feet from the summit, — then crossed the Iselton Alp 
and skirted the magnificent gorge of the Grindelwald, at the 
bottom of which frets and foams the plaintive Lutschine. 
From a narrow ridge by the way-side I looked down upon the 
twin lakes of Brienz and Thun, between which lay Interlaken, 
half concealed by the luxuriant foliage of its parks and gar- 
dens. As seen from that immense height, a steamer whose 
paddles wrinkled the blue surface of Lake Thun seemed 
scarcely bigger than a child's toy ship. 

At nine o'clock — three hours from the Faulhorn — I arrived 
at the inn on the Schynige Platte, and seated myself on the 
veranda for a good rest. The Platte is a table of shiny slate 
rock which hangs at a height of over four thousand feet directly 
above the bed of the Lutschine, and surveys the Grindelwald 
and Lauterbrunnen valleys both throughout their entire ex- 
tent. Behind it rises a mountain-crest (six thousand eight 
hundred feet), from which, looking northward, a magnificent 
view is had of Interlaken, with its neighboring lakes and low- 
lands, and the mountains of the Bernese Oberland. The 
Platte is one of the finest points of observation in Switzerland, 
not surpassed, — indeed, not equalled, — in some respects, by 
the loftiest mountain summits. From the tremendous abysses 
below comes up the mingled, unintermittent roar of many 
torrents fed by springs and glaciers on the surrounding moun- 
tains. As we look up the valley of the Lauterbrunnen, the 
splendid fall of the Staubbach appears, descending white and 
misty in its grand, unbroken leap of nine hundred feet. Far 
beyond it, at the head of the valley, and in the very heart of 
the mountains, the similarly lofty and graceful fall of the 
Schmadribach also drops, in full view, its silvery riband. 



252 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

From right to left, including the space between the abysses of 
the Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, extends a vast redan-like 
barrier of huge mountains and glaciers, — a gigantic battle- 
mented citadel where the Ice-King's reign is perpetual and 
supreme. Most conspicuous in this array are the dark, rugged 
mass of the Wengern Alp, closing the view towards Grindel- 
wald ; then, in their order, the peaks of the Eiger, the Monk, 
the Schneehorn, and the dazzling Silberhorn ; the Breithorn, 
whose snow-fields and glaciers give rise to the torrent of the 
Schmadribach ; the mighty wall of the Ebne-Fluh, with its 
white conical summit ; and, towering above all, directly oppo- 
site the Platte, the glorious Queen of the Alps, the sublimely- 
beautiful Jungfrau, robed in spotless white, pure, brilliant, and 
perpetual. 

While my attention was fixed by these sublime scenes, — ab- 
sorbed in a trance, almost, of awe and admiration, — suddenly a 
muffled rumbling sound was heard in the direction of the 
Jungfrau. At the same instant the innkeeper rushed towards 
me, pointing and exclaiming, " Sehen Sie! Sehen Sie! eine 
Lawine /" " See ! see ! an avalanche !" Of course I looked, 
with all my eyes, and saw, in the exact direction of the sound, 
a white torrent of descending snow, resembling, in the, distance, 
a foaming cataract, as it slid headlong down the rocky precipices 
of the mountain until caught upon the huge shoulders of ice 
and rock far below its point of origin. Immediately its white 
cataract began to diminish at the point where it poured over 
the ledge, and in a moment it dwindled to an apparently tiny 
stream, the sound of which could be no longer heard. In 
spring and summer these avalanches fall almost daily into the 
deep gorge of the Triimletenthal, between the Jungfrau and 
the Wengern Alp. 

My halt upon the Schynige Platte was virtually the end of 
a long tour in the Upper Alps, during which the strange fas- 
cination of the mountains had fixed itself upon me more 



THROUGH SICILF. 253 

strongly than I realized until I came to part with my majestic 
companions. My descent to Interlaken was slow and reluc- 
tant ; it seemed to me that I would be glad to remain always 
in the pure atmosphere and amid the sublime scenes of those 
upper regions, remote from all selfish human cares and pur- 
suits. Undoubtedly there is* a certain moral elevation to be 
obtained by association with Nature in her noblest and sub- 
limest forms. The soul takes on the character of its sur- 
roundings, and when they are pure and grand, it becomes 
itself so. It regrets its return, however necessary, to associa- 
tions which neither inspire nor purify. 

So I felt as the steeply-descending path brought me abruptly 
to the base of the mountain and I stepped out upon the hard, 
level road which leads to Interlaken. Yet my regret, how- 
ever keen, at the termination of a glorious experience, had its 
compensations, for I could realize with Professor Tyndall, in 
the fullest sense of the words, that "the Alps improve us 
totally, and we return from their precipices wiser as well as 
stronger men." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THROUGH SICILY. 
I. 

There is scarcely another portion of the globe of similar 
extent more interesting than Sicily. It is classic ground. The 
fables of Greek mythology have covered it with their unique 
enchantment. The flight of Dsedalus, the wanderings of 
Ulysses, the voyage of JEneas to Italy, the deathless love of 
Acis and Galataea, the jealousy and rage of Polyphemus, the 

22 



254 ' EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

rape of Proserpine, the metamorphosis of Scylla, the victory of 
Hercules over Eryx, the haunts of the Cyclopes, Gigantes, and 
Letophagi, — all had their legendary scenes along its shores, or 
among its mountains and valleys. 

What pearls of literature are strung upon the thread of 
Sicilian history ! In this island Sophocles was born, .^Eschylus 
wrote, Plato taught, and " burning Sappho loved and sung." 
Its pastoral life inspired the muse of Theocritus, unsurpassed 
among bucolic poets ; its annals are recorded in the pages of 
Diodorus, Polybius, Livy, and Thucydides. The exploits of 
its heroes were sung by Homer and Virgil ; the victories of 
its warriors were the themes of Pindar's noblest odes. Cicero 
dwelt in Sicily as Roman quaestor, described its scenery and 
architecture, and plead in its behalf against the vandalism of 
Verres. Here Tisias perfected the chorus of the Greek 
drama; Alcasus struck from his lyre his sublime praises of 
liberty and justice; Xenophanes recited his bold iambics; 
Epicharmus, named first of comic writers by Plato, composed 
his comedies ; Simonides wrote his masterpieces of elegiac song ; 
Archimedes expounded his discoveries in mechanics, mathe- 
matics, and hydrostatics ; and Empedocles, architect, states- 
man, and philosopher, broached his startling theories of mind 
and matter. 

The military events which have taken place within this 
Mediterranean palestra of the nations have changed the des- 
tinies of empires and races at nearly all periods of human his- 
tory. Here the armies of Hannibal and Hamilcar, of Alei- 
biades and Gylippus, of Timoleon and Marcellus, of Beli- 
sarius and Ibrahim, of Charles V. and Frederick II., of 
Robert Guiscard and Garibaldi, have in succession marched to 
conquest or to ruin. Carthaginian, Greek, Roman, Phoenician, 
Ostrogoth, Saracen, Norman, Spaniard, and Bourbon have all 
left here the traces of their dominion, more or less transient. 
In the same venerable building are seen the Romanesque, 



THROUGH SICILY. 255 

Gothic, and Byzantine styles of architecture, built one upon 
another, betokening the transition of as many different races 
and periods. In some parts of the island the language of the 
people is Norman or corrupt Spanish, and there is one plateau, 
called the Piato dei Greci, where to this day nothing is spoken 
but Greek. 

In its primitive state, if we may believe the half that is 
told of it, the natural scenery of Sicily must have been of 
surpassing loveliness. The imagination delights to picture it 
as it appeared to the Dorian Greeks when, sailing up the blue 
Mediterranean, they became enamoured of its beauty, and 
pitched their first settlements at Naxos. Its valleys,, we are 
told, were then clothed with luxuriant forests; flashing cas- 
cades fell voicefully from its mountains ; the vegetation of the 
semi-tropics rioted upon its virgin soil ; and so rich was the 
fragrance of its flowers and blossoms that the hounds lost the 
scent of their prey. The Greek colonists doubtless found here 
a new Arcadia, realizing to their lively imaginations the ideal 
one which their poets had celebrated in immortal song. 

Very different from that is the Sicily of to-day, worn by 
the tramp of so many generations, and despoiled by the ravish- 
ment of so many conquests. The hills and valleys as they 
now appear are almost bare of timber ; the watercourses, 
although roaring torrents in winter, are nearly dry in summer ; 
a great deal of the soil is thin and sterile, and the scarcity of 
water confines luxuriance of vegetation mostly to the districts 
near to the coast. Wheat of good quality is extensively 
grown, but the yield per acre is pitiably small. The cultivation 
of cotton spread over the island during our civil war, but has 
become insignificant again, owing to the inferiority of the 
plant to American cotton. The orange, the almond, and the 
vine flourish along the coast ; the olive in the interior as well. 
The volcanic and limestone rocks forming the surface strata 
bear no merchantable minerals other than salt, sulphur, and 



256 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

marble. Trains of carts laden with yellow sulphur blocks are 
among the unique sights of the interior. 

The towns and villages generally occupy the lofty sites of 
ancient strongholds, or the places of refuge upon the hill-tops 
to which the people were driven for self-protection during the 
Middle-Age invasions. Built of stone, and heavily walled, 
the towns of the interior have a cheerless appearance which 
lends no touch of beauty to the scenery. 

One of the most interesting of these fortified places is Cas- 
trogiovanni, the Enna of the Greeks, situated on the summit 
of a hill which rises two thousand six hundred feet. Although 
pronounced " inexpugnable" by Livy, Enna was besieged and 
mastered successively by the Syracusans, Carthaginians, 
Romans, Arabs, and Normans. In the ninth century the 
Saracens were beaten off in their attempt to carry the place by 
storm. Against the Romans it held out for two years ; and 
Roman missiles are found even yet, it is said, on the slopes 
beneath its walls. The town is now in a wretched state of 
decay, with not a vestige to show of the splendid temples 
which once adorned it. The country round about, though 
anciently of great luxuriance, now looks impoverished and 
lifeless. 

Palermo — called la felice because of its splendid site and 
climate — was originally the seat of a Phoenician settlement, 
which gave place to a Greek colony. It was held by the Car- 
thaginians during their first invasion, but was wrested from 
them by the Greek army under Pyrrhus. Retaken by the 
Carthaginians, it was afterwards captured and held in succession 
by the Romans, the Goths, the Saracens, and the Normans. 
Traces of these different vicissitudes are found in the names 
of its streets and buildings, the character of its architecture, 
and the language of its people. Conspicuous in the medley 
of Greek, Saracenic, and Latin derivatives by which its prin- 
cipal thoroughfares are known appears the illustrious Anieri- 



THROUGH SICILY. 257 

can name of Lincoln. On the Via Lincoln we pass the gate 
by which Garibaldi entered the city in 1860. Following a 
stately promenade which extends along the entire sea-front of 
the city, we reach the rock of Monte Pellegrino, two miles 
west of the city proper. On this magnificent promontory, ris- 
ing two thousand feet abruptly from the sea, the Carthaginians 
intrenched themselves, and made obstinate resistance to the 
Romans. In a grotto of the mountain was found, it is said, 
the body of Santa Rosalia, a Norman princess, niece of Wil- 
liam II., who fled to that refuge from the brutality of a Sar- 
acen soldier, and died there in retirement. The remains of 
the saint were opportunely discovered during the plague of 
1664, and, being borne through the city, caused the epidemic 
to be stayed. Since that event Santa Rosalia has ever been 
the patron saint of Palermo. 

In the older churches of the city are seen some very fine 
specimens of the Norman style, and in the secular buildings 
some interesting illustrations of the feudal architecture of a 
later period. The palace is a decayed and sorry morsel of 
mediaeval splendor, excepting its chapel, which is one of the 
best specimens of the Byzantine style extant. The vestibule 
of this little chapel is supported by seven columns, six of 
which are composed of Egyptian granite. The Arabian 
pointed arches of the nave are supported by ten columns of 
granite and cipolin. The entire surface of the walls and 
vaulting is covered with florid mosaics laboriously wrought on 
a golden ground. The cathedral, a nondescript structure 
partly Byzantine and partly Gothic, with an incongruous 
dome, contains the tombs of the Sicilian kings. The objects 
of chief interest in the National Museum are the metopes of 
Selinus, illustrating the most ancient sculpture of the Greeks. 

The Cathedral of Monreale, five miles from Palermo, is one 
of the finest in Sicily, particularly interesting on account of 
its magnificent portal, and its tombs and monuments of Nor- 
r 22* 



258 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

man monarchs. Near it yet remain, the beautiful cloisters of 
the Benedictine monastery, with their rare vaulting and delight- 
ful garden. 

For a general view of Palermo and its environs, we ascend 
the suburban height on which stands, amid a clustered mass 
of palms, cypresses, olives, oleanders, and aloe-trees, the old 
Minorite monastery known as Santa Maria di Jesu. From 
thence we overlook the city, the zone of garden-like plats and 
groves which circles between it and the hills, and the dimpling, 
sparkling waters of the bay which fronts it on its seaward 
side. 

The most interesting works of man in Sicily, and those 
least indebted to human care, are its remains of Greek and 
Roman antiquity. These remains are found chiefly at Segesta, 
Selinunto, Girgenti, Syracuse, Catania, and Taormina. The 
ruins of Segesta, the Egesta of the Greeks, lie south-west of 
Palermo, whence they may be reached by five hours' travel on 
a mountainous road leading through Monreale and Alcamo. 
The ruins stand on high ground, solitary and desolate, over- 
looking the scene of Garibaldi's victory of May 15, 1860. 
Egesta was one of the most ancient settlements in Sicily, ante- 
dating even the advent of the Greeks. Tradition ascribes its 
original foundation to the Trojan followers of iEneas. Not- 
withstanding that it became thoroughly Greek, its feuds with 
its Greek neighbors were incessant, especially with Selinunto. 
The Athenian army, while besieging Syracuse, took sides with 
Egesta, but after the ruin of that army both the rival cities 
fell into the hands of the Carthaginians, and were both de- 
stroyed. All that now remains of Egesta comprises some 
scraps of mosaic pavement recently excavated ; the theatre, 
hewn in the natural rock ; and the temple, which is one of the 
best preserved of the Doric style in Sicily. The theatre, in 
the usual Greek form, with seats rising in tiers, has a diameter 
of two hundred and five feet. The breadth of the stage is 



THROUGH SICILY. 259 

ninety feet, and that of the orchestra fifty-three feet. The 
temple, although never entirely completed, is a majestic struct- 
ure, with thirty-six unfluted columns. Its width is eighty- 
five feet; its length two hundred. 

In the south-western angle of the island, twenty-five miles 
south of Segesta, lies Castelvetrano, the nearest inhabited 
town to the ruins of Selinunto. These ruins, now surrounded 
by a deserted, insalubrious region, comprise some of the 
grandest ancient temples in Europe. The Greek colony at 
Selinunto was established by emigrants from Megara more 
than six centuries before the Christian era. Its rivalries and 
wars with Egesta afforded pretexts both to the Athenians and 
the Carthaginians to interfere in the affairs of Sicily. Hamilcar 
attacked the place with an army one hundred thousand strong, 
captured it, and massacred sixteen thousand of its people. 
Five thousand others he transported as slaves to Africa. The 
Saracens occupied the ruined town during their invasion, and 
held it obstinately against the attacks of King Roger. 

The temples of Selinunto stand upon two eminences over- 
looking the sea. They are seven in number, and were yet in 
course of completion when the town was captured and de- 
vastated by Hamilcar Giscon, four centuries before Christ. 
During the early Christian period cells were built between 
their buttresses, and used as dwellings. Earthquakes have 
added their destructive forces to the work of vandal human 
hands in making wreck of these noble ruins. 

At Girgenti, five hours from Palermo by rail, is seen another 
group of these remains, which is the finest in Sicily. Girgenti 
— the Akragas of the ancient Greeks, and Agrigentum of the 
Romans — was founded by Doric colonists, natives of Crete, 
nearly six centuries before the Christian era. The ancient city 
was magnificently situated upon an elevated plateau, behind 
which rose a semicircular environment of rocky cliffs, and 
before which was outspread the blue Mediterranean. Pindar 



260 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

pronounced it " the most beautiful city of mortals." At its 
best estate its population was probably about two hundred 
thousand, although some estimates make it as high as eight 
hundred thousand. Of prodigious wealth, its people built, it 
was said, as if they expected to live forever. One of their 
champions, returning victorious from the Olympic games, was 
escorted by three hundred chariots each drawn by four milk- 
white steeds. Art and architecture were invoked to the ut- 
most of their resources in contributing to the splendors of the 
city. The Temple of Juno enshrined a painting of that god- 
dess executed by the immortal Zeuxis, who chose as models for 
the work the five most beautiful virgins of Akragas. A cele- 
brated painting by the same artist, representing the infant 
Hercules in the act of strangling two serpents, adorned the 
temple of that god. 

Of the temples, — seven in all, — the best preserved is that 
of Concord, of which the architrave, pediments, and thirty- 
four columns remain in their original positions. The Temple 
of Juno, splendidly situated on a salient of the promontory, 
is a hexastyle of thirty-four columns of the perfected Doric 
style, each column having twenty flutes and a height just five 
times its diameter. Sixteen of the columns are yet standing. 
The Temple of Hercules, two hundred and forty-one feet long, 
is a hexastyle of thirty-eight columns, of which all are down 
but one, which stands like a mourner over its fallen comrades. 
Verres, the rapacious Roman governor whom Cicero prose- 
cuted and drove into exile, attempted to despoil this temple of 
its statue of Hercules, but was thwarted by the pious Agri- 
gentines, who drove off his emissaries. 

The Temple of Jupiter, a huge hypsethral structure, ex- 
tolled by Polybius, but never entirely completed, dates from 
480 to 400 B.C. Its thirty-seven massive half-columns were 
each twenty feet in circumference, and grooved with flutes each 
broad enough for a man to stand in it. In the interior the 



THROUGH SICILY. 261 

columns were mated by corresponding pilasters, upon which, in 
the cella, stood colossal Atlantes, supporting the entablature. 
A grand plastic design was wrought in each tympanum, that 
of the eastern front representing the gods contending with the 
giants ; that of the western, the siege of Troy. Wrecked by 
earthquakes and ravaged by war, this stately fane has been 
drawn upon for materials for ignoble purposes until compara- 
tively little of it remains. 

In the choice of position of these temples the studied taste 
of the Greeks has been strikingly displayed. In such har- 
mony are the edifices with their natural surroundings, that, 
from whatever direction we view them, they seem to be a 
necessary part, as well as a splendid embellishment, of the 
scene. At the same time the view from the temples them- 
selves is a superb one, covering a wide sweep of plains, valleys, 
and mountains, before which spreads out, as far as the eye can 
pierce, the deep, tranquil azure of the sea. 

The conquest of Akragas by the Carthaginians is one of the 
saddest chapters in history. After destroying Egesta and 
Selinunto, the Carthaginian leaders Hamilcar and Himilco led 
their forces against this wealthy and beautiful metropolis. 
Having girdled it with their armies, they prepared to scale its 
walls by erecting wooden towers, which the besieged, sallying 
forth in the night, captured and burned. The Carthaginians 
then built towers of stone, for which purpose they demolished 
the Akragan tombs, a sacrilege followed by the terrors of a 
thunderbolt and the ravages of a plague. To appease the 
anger of the gods, the besiegers ceased their violation of the 
resting-places of the dead, and sacrificed a boy to Saturn. 
Meanwhile, a Syracusan army, sent to the relief of the be- 
leaguered city, attacked the Carthaginians, routed them, and 
besieged them in their own camp ; but from this predicament 
they were soon relieved by the energy of Himilco, who de- 
stroyed a Syracusan fleet, bringing supplies to Akragas, the 



262 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

allies of which he seduced with bribes. Thereupon the leaders 
of the Akragans determined that, to avoid the horrors of 
starvation, the entire population of the city should abandon it 
in the night. The publication of this decree caused universal 
wailing. " It was a mournful spectacle," says the historian, 
"to see two hundred thousand citizens, of every age, sex, and 
condition, abandoning with tears their household gods ; while 
matrons, beautiful virgins, innocent children, the old and the 
young, the slave and his master, the plebeian with the patri- 
cian, passed instantaneously from the summit of luxury to the 
extreme of wretchedness. The whole body, escorted by the 
military, retired to Gela, whence the Syracusans conducted 
them to Leontinum." 

The railway to Catania being not yet completed farther west 
than Canicatti, I journeyed thither from Girgenti by the post 
diligence, which was guarded from bandit attack by a mounted 
patrol. The ride was a dusty one, but its discomfort was 
palliated by the novelty of the scenery. From. Canicatti we 
proceeded eastward by rail, passing through a meagrely-tim- 
bered country, broken into clayey hills. The movement of 
the train was slow and rapid by turns, as its course happened 
to be up or down on the steep gradients of the line. Passing 
Caltanisetta and Castrogiovanni, we descended into the valley 
of the ancient Chrysas. By that time evening was approach- 
ing, and the setting sun, diffusing the atmosphere with its 
mellow radiance, softened the outlines of the hills, and covered 
them with the marvellously-delicate purple tint peculiar to 
Italy. The gray-and-yellow cliffs and arid ridges became 
surpassingly lovely under the transfiguring magic of light and 
shadow. I was absorbed in admiration of the scene when my 
sole travelling-companion — a Sicilian — addressed me for the 
first time. His speech was laconic, but meant much. " Etna ! 
Etna !" was his exclamation, as he beckoned me to the window 
by which he sat. I looked, and, sure enough, there stood 



THROUGH SICILY. 263 

Etna, in full view from base to summit. The upper portion 
of the mountain, zoned far down with perpetual snow, was 
fair and dazzling as a sun-illumined cloud. Fortunately the 
wind carried in the direction opposite to us the vast volumes 
of steam and smoke, issuing from the crater, leaving the 
entire cone clearly outlined against the sky. I saw the moun- 
tain afterwards from many different directions, but no view 
of it was so impressive as the first. Fair, majestic, and allur- 
ing, — even so, probably, did it appear to the adventurous 
Greeks when they first planted their civilization beneath its 
mighty shadow. 

Mount Etna, or Mongibello, as the Sicilians call it, is a 
gigantic cone of heaped-up lava two and one-sixteenth miles 
high. The circumference of its base, if we include the whole 
mass of volcanic matter which has accumulated around the 
axis of its crater, is about one hundred miles. Its slopes are 
belted by three different zones of vegetation, the first rising 
about two thousand three hundred feet. In the soil of this 
zone, consisting of decomposed lava, grow olives, oranges, 
pomegranates, apples, figs, almonds, and cinnamon-, pepper-, 
and citron-trees in great luxuriance. The vine also flourishes 
in this region, and is occasionally seen far above it. The 
second zone, rising about four thousand seven hundred feet 
above the first, contains forests of oak, chestnut, birch, and 
pine. The third zone, comprising all above the second, con- 
tains but little vegetation. Among the plants found there are 
the barberry, juniper, and some hardy species peculiar to 
Etna. In its general appearance this upper zone is a black, 
silent, glittering waste, streaked with snow-drifts and entirely 
destitute of animal life. A quarry of perpetual ice was found 
there in 1828, under a stratum of lava which must have 
flowed over it. The crater is at the top of a mountain of 
ashes and stones which rises about eleven hundred "feet above 
the snowy tract. Usually it is a single abyss, but sometimes 



264 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

it is crossed by a barrier, from one side only of which smoke 
is emitted. An important change of the summit takes place 
at each eruption. 

In ancient myth, Etna was sometimes called the prison of 
the giant Typhon, enemy of the gods, and sometimes the forge 
of Vulcan. According to some poets, the monster Enceladus 
lay pinioned beneath its mass, and caused its eruptions by his 
struggles. The absence of any allusion in the Homeric tradi- 
tions to the volcanic character of the mountain has led to the 
belief that it was quiescent at the time of Ulysses's fabled 
adventures. Its eruptions, of which we have historical record, 
number eighty-one. The earliest of these is described by 
Pindar, whose account of its terrific sublimity bears evidence 
of truth. Thucydides mentions three different eruptions, and 
Diodorus Siculus tells of fiery outbreaks which obliged the 
aboriginal inhabitants to flee to the western part of the island. 
In modern times an eruption has taken place about once in 
ten years. The most stupendous and destructive one of which 
we have any account was that of 1669, when a violent earth- 
quake, which shook down the village of Nicolosi, was followed 
a few days later by the outbreak of lava streams pouring from 
different parts of the mountain. On that occasion the red 
double cone of Monte* Rossi was formed, many lives were lost, 
and twenty-seven thousand persons were rendered homeless. 
A fissure twelve miles long, extending within a mile of the 
summit, burned with a vivid light, while parallel fissures 
emitted smoke and terrific bellowing noises. The walls of 
Catania had been raised to a height of sixty feet, but the 
descending lava overleaped them, and poured a cataract of 
liquid fire among the houses. In twenty days the lava cur- 
rent reached the sea, having flowed fifteen miles from its place 
of issue on the mountain. Eight years afterwards the current 
was glowing hot beneath the crust of black spinous rock 
which formed over it. As the molten mass entered the sea, 



THROUGH SICILY. 265 

the water was thrown into violent commotion, producing hor- 
rible noises ; the fish were destroyed and cast ashore, and the 
sun was darkened by enormous clouds of vapor. For many 
months afterwards the water remained turbid. 

The ascent of Etna is usually made from Nicolosi, ten 
miles from Catania, the time of starting being so regulated 
that the sunset may be viewed from the Casa del Bosco (four 
thousand two hundred and sixteen feet), and the .sunrise from 
the summit. A halt is made at the Casa Inglese (nine thou- 
sand six hundred and fifty-two feet) from midnight until two 
or three o'clock in the morning. From the Casa Inglese 
(English House) the cone must be scaled on foot. Immense 
volumes of sulphurous smoke, accompanied by subterranean 
rumbling, issue continually from the crater, but in settled 
weather a good view from its margin is reasonably certain. 
The grandeur of the sunrise, witnessed from the pinnacle, 
cannot be exaggerated. As dawn approaches, the stars rapidly 
disappear from the paling sky ; the eastern horizon reddens, 
faintly at first, then deeply; and the summit of the mountain 
begins to be illumined while all below is yet wrapped in the 
deep obscurity of night. While the sun yet reposes in the 
sea, which seems like a lofty bank of clouds, the distant moun- 
tains of Apulia disclose their notched outlines against the 
eastern sky, and, looking westward, the island appears like a 
sea of wave-like rocky ridges blending with the morning mists. 
Flecks of purple cloud mark the spot where the sun is about 
to appear, and while their burning splendors deepeu, suddenly 
a ray of golden light, with edges of intensest purple, darts 
across the water the beaming disk slowly emerges, and while 
the top of Etna is tipped with sunshine, the mountains of 
Calabria still cast their long shadows on the sea. Suddenly, like 
an electric flash, the light strikes the summits of the mountains 
below, and the vast pyramid of Etna casts its shadow over 
Sicily, forming a colossal triangle on the surface of the island. 
m 23 



266 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

As the sun ascends, the prospect widens, and additional 
points come into view. Northward, the Lipari Islands, with 
their smoking volcanoes, and the peak of Stromboli are dis- 
closed ; eastward, the Calabrian peninsula and its mountains ; 
southward, Syracuse, and, far off on the blue sea, the island of 
Malta ; while westward, the Pizzo di Palermo towers highest 
in the Madonian range, and Castrogiovanni sits upon its pin- 
nacle of rocks. Around us lies a silent, black, ashy waste, 
the desolation of which is intensified by contrast with the 
scenes of cheerful luxuriance into which it descends. Enor- 
mous masses of lava, seamed, twisted, and rolled in dragon- 
like contortions, extend far down until, concealed amid the 
orange-groves, they pour into the sea and merge their black 
masses with its snowy surf. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THKOUGH SICILY. 
II. 

With the recorded history of Mount Etna that of Catania is 
closely identified. This delightful city — next to Palermo the 
largest in Sicily — traces its origin back to a little colony of 
Chalcidian Greeks, founded by the Athenian Theocles, more 
than seven centuries before the Christian era. After having 
suffered greatly in the wars of the Doric colonies with the 
Chalcidians, the town was captured by the Syracusan Hiero 
I., then repeopled under the leadership of the philosopher 
Xenophanes, taken by the invading Athenians, captured and 
destroyed by Dionysius, taken a second time by the Cartha- 
ginians, and, finally, seized and possessed, with all the rest of 



THROUGH SICILY. 267 

Sicily, by the Romans. Its political vicissitudes daring the 
Middle Ages and in modern times have not been less diversi- 
fied than those of its ancient history, though less calamitous 
than its misfortunes by earthquakes and Etnean eruptions. 
Several times the town has been completely destroyed by these 
convulsions, yet as often it has risen again upon its original 
site, so that it now stands on a plane sixty feet higher than 
that of the city of the seventh century. The mighty lava 
stream which poured down upon it in 1669 was diverted from 
its course by the heavy buttressed walls of the Benedictine 
monastery, around which, to this day, lies a mass of black 
volcanic rock, once a hissing current -of fire. Twenty-four 
years later, this monastery, then the second largest in the 
world, was wrecked by an earthquake, after which calamity it 
was reconstructed as it now stands, covering an area of one 
hundred thousand square yards. Its present most notable 
possession is a magnificent organ of nearly three thousand pipes, 
one of the finest in Europe. 

Out of all its eventful history, with its wonderful catalogue 
of misfortunes, Catania has emerged a most charming city, 
with wide, clean streets, new and stylish architecture, and un- 
mistakable signs of prosperity. Here, too, as in Palermo, we 
find the name of Lincoln attached to one of the principal 
thoroughfares. 

Syracuse lies three hours distant from Catania by rail. In 
visiting it, strangers usually go from Catania, leaving there in 
the morning, and returning — for the sake of good lodgings — 
in the evening. Quitting Catania, the railway takes an in- 
terior course until it reaches Leontini, — the Leontinum famous 
in ancient story, — from whence it returns to and follows the 
crooked line of the sea-coast, frequently disclosing the magni- 
ficent pyramid of Etna on the one hand and the vast blue sea 
on the other. Directly we pass the fortified seaport of Augusta, 
the ancient Xiphonia ; then the Megarean bay of antiquity ; 



2G8 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

then Hybla, renowned in Greek song for its bees and honey. 
Priolo, the next town, has recent and vivid distinction in my 
mind as the place where some fisher-boys importuned me, 
while the train halted, to buy some specimens of the octopus. 
Opposite Priolo lies the little peninsula of Thapsus, near which 
was moored the Athenian fleet. Passing Thapsus, and skirt- 
ing the bay in which Marcellus marshalled his ships, the 
train reaches the confines of ancient Syracuse, and, rounding a 
stony headland on which part of the city stood, enters by an 
excavation within its walls. 

The lifeless modern town of twenty thousand souls, which 
travesties the renown of these classic precincts, is situated on 
the island of Ortygia, the northern extremity of which lies 
close to the coast. South and west of Ortygia the sea extends 
inland, forming a most excellent harbor. On the island thus 
situated the ancient city of Syracuse was originally founded by 
Corinthian Greeks, seven hundred and thirty-four years before 
the Christian era. The colonists reduced the native inhabi- 
tants to the condition of serfs, and established an aristocratic 
government. So great was their prosperity, due mainly to the 
extreme fertility of the country round about them, that 
auxiliary colonies were soon established at Euna (Castro- 
giovanni) and other places in the interior, and their city, out- 
growing its insular position, extended itself to the mainland. 
Here it spread over a rocky plateau overlooking the bay, the 
original town, and the sea beyond. Eventually the city con- 
sisted of five different parts, all surrounded by lofty walls, and 
forming, altogether, a vast fortress over twenty miles in cir- 
cumference, of which Ortygia was the citadel. 

On the mainland the city comprised four contiguous sec- 
tions, each of which bore a different name and was surrounded 
by its own walls. These four towns, known respectively as 
Achradina, Tyche, Neapolis, and Epipolse, covered a broad 
plateau in the form of a triangle, of which the base was washed 



THROUGH SICILY. 269 

by the sea and the apex turned inland. Achradina, which 
comprised the stony coast headland now skirted by the rail- 
way, was separated from the other sections on its inland side 
by a ravine, and from Ortygia by a narrow strait crossed by a 
causeway. The low ground around the margin of the bay, 
west and south of Ortygia, formed a suburb, with gardens. 

At the zenith of its prosperity Syracuse contained half a 
million people, and was the most important of all the Hel- 
lenic cities. Pindar called it " The Fane of Mars," and 
Cicero extolled it as the most beautiful city of the Grecian 
world. In literature and art, and in the achievements and ce- 
lebrity of its illustrious men, whether warriors, philosophers, 
or statesmen, it was the rival of Athens itself. 

Gelon, of Gela, having been invited to interfere in a revolt 
of the serfs of Syracuse against its nobles, usurped its gov- 
ernment, which he changed from its plutocratic form to that 
of a dictatorship, with himself at the head. Energetic and 
able, Gelon bent all his energies to the aggrandizement of the 
city of his adoption. An invading Carthaginian army three 
hundred thousand strong was overthrown by his valor, after 
which event the golden era of Greek supremacy in Sicily 
began. Syracuse was practically mistress of the entire island ; 
but her prosperity and splendor provoked the jealousy and 
cupidity of Athens and tempted the ambition of Alcibiades, 
who set forth with a poweful fleet and an army for her sub- 
jugation. Alcibiades had scarcely landed in Sicily when he 
was recalled to answer the accusations of his enemies, and went 
over to Sparta, then at war with Athens. The leadership of 
the expedition "thus fell to Nicias, a timid, irresolute man, 
greatly inferior to his predecessor both in genius and boldness. 
In spite of the indecision of Nicias, and his deficiency in 
energy, the Athenians were at first successful, especially during 
the summer of 414 B.C., when they stormed and carried the 
most elevated portion of the city, known as the Epipola?, and 

23* 



270 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WATS. 

enclosed the rest of it with double lines of approach. The 
Syracusans were now reduced to great extremities, and were 
on the point of capitulation, when the Spartan Gylippus, de- 
spatched at the instigation of Alcibiades, arrived with a small 
army, broke through the Athenian wall into the city, and 
turned the tide of its fortunes. With his assistance the be- 
sieged recovered strength and wrested from Nicias the pro- 
montory of Plemmyrium, on the opposite side of the bay 
from Ortygia. After this the Athenians exhibited their superior 
nautical skill in an encounter with the Syracusan fleet, which 
was defeated ; but in a subsequent encounter between the fleets 
the fortunes of battle were reversed. The Athenians had 
achieved their last success, and were now, in turn, put upon 
the defensive. A reinforcement was sent to their relief, under 
Demosthenes, — not the celebrated orator, — who, after a hazard- 
ous night march, attacked the Spartan intrenchments and was 
repulsed with the loss of nearly his entire command. Over- 
taken by military disaster, scourged by the plague, and harassed 
by the dissensions of their leaders, the Athenians thought only 
of retreat, preliminary to which their fleet, moored in the bay, 
undertook to beat off the Syracusan galleys and clear the way 
to the open sea. The effort failed, the assailants being defeated 
and driven back. Thereupon Nicias and Demosthenes pre- 
pared to embark their land forces and attempt a night escape 
from the harbor, but an eclipse of the moon during the night 
appointed (August 27, 41 3) aroused their superstitious fears, 
causing them to postpone for twenty-four hours the execution 
of their plans. Meanwhile, the Syracusans closed the exit 
from the bay with a line of boats connected by chains. They 
also resolved to attack and destroy the Athenian fleet, and 
while the two armaments grappled with each other in the bay, 
the encounter was watched from its shores by the land armies, 
whose shouts, says Thucydides, as the tide of victory swayed 
to and fro, resembled the surging of a dramatic chorus. The 



THROUGH SICILY. 271 

fleet of the Athenians being beaten, they quitted by night 
their intrenchments before the city and marched rapidly south- 
ward, hoping to escape from some point on the lower coast, but 
were promptly pursued, overtaken, and captured almost to a 
man. Seven thousand of them were cruelly imprisoned for eight 
months in one of the deep, roofless pits formed in quarrying 
the stone used in building the city. The survivors of this 
barbarous treatment were sold into slavery, except a few — tra- 
dition says — who were released because of their skill in 
reciting the verses of Euripides. 

This repulse of the Athenian power from the walls of 
Syracuse is declared by Thucydides to have been the most 
important event in the history of the Greeks. It was the 
turning-point in the destinies of Athens, whose power thence- 
forward declined ; whereas, had her expedition been successful, 
she would perhaps have forestalled the career of Rome as 
mistress of the world. 

Eight years after the Athenian repulse, the Carthaginians 
again overran Sicily, and their army under Himilco laid siege 
to Syracuse, which was defended with extraordinary ability by 
Dionysius the elder. Scourged by pestilence, and repulsed in 
its assaults, the army of Himilco fared little better than that 
of Nicias, and withdrew, a shattered remnant. Dionysius then 
improved the fortifications of Ortygia, and built a strong wall 
around the city, which he so extended and embellished that he 
was called its second founder. This great ruler and military 
leader, though called a tyrant, was not an absolute despot. 
He was unscrupulous and vindictive, but the forms of popular 
government were continued under his sway, and we find him 
frequently convoking the assembly of the people. His son 
and successor, Dionysius II., was, more properly speaking, a 
tyrant, and upon the solicitation of his people, who would no 
longer endure his debaucheries and abuses of power, was over- 
thrown by an expedition from Corinth, led by Timoleon. 



272 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

After a brief restoration of the republic, Agathocles usurped the 
dictatorship, and sent an army over to Africa, which besieged 
Carthage, while the Carthaginians, in turn, attacked Syracuse, 
but were repulsed. Brilliant, but cruel, faithless, and adven- 
turous, Agathocles perished by poison. 

Hiero II., invested by popular choice with the supreme 
power, w T as soon afterwards proclaimed king, and ruled wisely 
for fifty-four years, during which time Syracuse became more 
prosperous and splendid than ever before. Hiero kept peace 
with Rome, but his successor formed an alliance with Car- 
thage against her. Thereupon Marcellus, with a powerful fleet 
and army, laid siege to Syracuse (214-212), the defence of 
which was made illustrious by the patriotism and science of 
Archimedes, who is said to have fired the Roman ships with 
burning-glasses erected on the walls. Withstood by a pro- 
longed and obstinate defence, the Romans at length carried 
the Hexapylon of Dionysius, and gained admission by treach-, 
ery to the citadel of Ortygia. The proud and splendid Syra- 
cuse had received her fatal thrust ; her remaining history is 
but a story of lingering death. When the victorious Marcellus 
looked down upon the city from its heights, at morning, and 
reflected upon its ancient glory and impending fate, he is said 
to have burst into tears. Its liberties crushed, its treasures 
plundered, its pictures and statues borne away to Rome, where 
they first awakened the love of Greek art, the city sank into 
permanent decay. The Emperor Augustus endeavored to re- 
store it as a Roman colony, but in vain. It would be Greek 
or nothing ; to-day it is nothing. 

Two thousand years after its conquest by Marcellus, we find 
difficulty in tracing even its boundaries, except as Nature made 
them. Walls, palaces, temples, streets, groves, — all have van- 
ished. For hours I wandered over the solitary fields of the 
Achradina and the Epipolse, seeking among weeds and barley- 
patches for traces of the ancient city, but finding them only 



THROUGH SICILY. 273 

here and there, scratched upon the arid surface of the rock. 
Looking from these heights, one thing only could be seen 
which has remained unchanged through the flight of ages, and 
that was the blue " unresting sea," whose deep azure waters 
sparkled as cheerily in the morning sunlight, and broke in 
cadence as melodious, 

Adown the bright and belting shore, 

as when ploughed by the warring fleets of Athens, Rome, and 
Carthage. Verily, 

Men change, and cease to be, 

And empires rise, and grow, and fall ; 
But the weird music of the sea 

Lives and outlives them all. 

Upon the bleak heights of the Achradina, from which even 
the soil is gone, the wall of Gelon may be faintly traced. 
Here and there the natural rock is itself chiselled into battle- 
ments. Tyche, Neapolis, and Epipolse are almost equally 
desolate, and equally barren of vestiges of their ancient life 
and splendor. A solitary column rising in a meadow is all 
that remains of what was probably once a magnificent forum. 
At the pointed extremity of the Epipolse, where the walls 
converged, stood the Hexapylon, a noble fortress built by 
Dionysius with such consummate skill as to command even 
yet the admiration of military engineers. Its ruins include 
the remnants of four massive towers, with two deep fosses cut 
in the rock, and subterranean passages through which infantry 
and cavalry could make their sallies and retire again to the 
protection of the fort. All around are strewn heavy blocks 
from the parapets, cut with grooves for pouring boiling pitch 
upon the heads of the assailants. The city was supplied with 
water from the mountains by two great aqueducts which cross 
the triangular plateau in channels cut in the natural rock. 



274 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

One of these, descending through Achradina to the sea, passes 
under the Little Harbor and emerges in Ortygia as the so- 
called fountain of Arethusa. A natural spring found on the 
island by the Greeks, but now probably extinct, derived this 
name from the fable that the nymph Arethusa, pursued thither 
from El is by the river-god Alpheus, was metamorphosed by 
Diana into a fountain. 

The ancient Greek theatre, cut in the natural rock on the 
southern slope of the triangular plateau, is the largest and one 
of the most complete ruins of the kind in existence. Nearly 
semicircular in form, with a diameter of four hundred and 
ninety-five feet, it contains sixty tiers of seats, of which forty- 
six remain, sloping upward and backward from the orchestra. 
The names of King Hiero, Queen Philistis, and other eminent 
persons, with which the different compartments were desig- 
nated, are still legible, cut in Greek letters on the limestone. 
The auditorium is a model of symmetry, so contrived that, by 
all the spectators, every object upon the stage could be seen, 
and every word heard. From its upper part, looking towards 
the stage, the eye sweeps over a magnificent landscape, diversi- 
fied by plain, mountain, valley, and sea. Such was the setting 
to the beautiful classic dramas here witnessed by the Syra- 
cusans assembled in thousands, fanned by zephyrs from the 
meadows, and screened by awnings from the sun. 

A short distance from the Greek theatre the Street of the 
Tombs ploughs its deep, sinuous course through the natural 
limestone rock. In its walls, on either side, are cavities in 
which the bodies of the dead were deposited, but not a vestige 
of their ashes or cerements remains. Even the dead have 
vanished, as well as the living, leaving no trace behind. 
Among the pretentious tombs hewn in the rocky walls of the 
plateau are two with Doric facings, one of which tradition 
doubtfully assigns to Timoleon, and the other to Archimedes. 
The neglected tomb of Archimedes, discovered and described 



THROUGH SICILY. 275 

by Cicero, can no longer be identified. It was probably out- 
side the city. 

One of the few distinct and impressive vestiges of ancient 
Syracuse is the Roman amphitheatre, which, like the Greek 
theatre, is also an excavation in the limestone strata. Its 
arena, over the entrance to which still springs a ruined arch, is 
strewn with blocks of marble, some of which are carved with 
the names of people who owned seats in the auditorium. 
Near to the amphitheatre is the great stone altar on which 
King Hiero annually sacrificed hecatombs of oxen to com- 
memorate the overthrow of his profligate predecessor, Thrasy- 
bulus. 

The immense quarries from which the material was taken 
for building the city and its walls are impressive evidences of 
its greatness. Anciently used as burial-places and prisons, 
these huge pits now contain orange-groves, dwellings, and 
gardens. At the bottom of the quarry within which seven 
thousand Athenian captives were cruelly incarcerated, I found 
little children playing among the citron-trees, and peasants 
spinning twine. Another quarry, one hundred and thirty feet 
deep, contains the famous grotto called the Ear of Dionysius, 
so named during the sixteenth century. This grotto, seventy 
feet high and two hundred feet long, is cut in the solid rock 
in the form of the letter S, and tapers towards its summit. 
The slightest sound at the bottom of the grotto is heard at 
the top, while a loud sound produces a wonderful echo. Dio- 
nysius is said to have constructed prisons with such acoustic 
properties, so that he might hear every word — even a whisper 
— spoken within them. It has been arbitrarily assumed, 
without evidence, that this grotto was one of those contri- 
vances. 

The catacombs of Syracuse, lying several stories deep under 
the greater part of the lower Achradina, have an aggregate 
length of about nine miles. Frescos and inscriptions on their 



276 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

walls show that they were used as Christian burial-places, but 
their excavation, probably made for other purposes, is believed 
to antedate the Christian era. The custodian, a decrepit sexa- 
genarian, lighted me down into a neighboring crypt of the 
decayed and mouldy old church of San Giovanni. In this 
crypt, we are told, St. Paul preached when he tarried at Syra- 
cuse, on his way to Rome.* St. Marcian, whose tomb is in 
this crypt, is said to have suffered martyrdom while tied to 
one of its granite pillars. A groove on the surface of the 
pillar was worn, it is claimed, by the rope with which the 
saint was bound. 

The modern town of Syracuse is but a lingering and 
gloomy shadow of its illustrious namesake. The most im- 
portant building it contains is its cathedral, erected on the site 
of a Doric temple. This edifice is dedicated to "Our Lady 
of Columns," because twenty-four noble pillars of the de- 
molished temple support its walls. The ancient fane, the 
remnants of which have been thus misappropriated, has been 
supposed to be the same as that described by Cicero as having 
been spared by Marcellus, but stripped bare of its splendid 
ornaments by the infamous Verres. The roof of that temple 
supported an enormous gilded shield, glittering in the sunlight 
and seen far at sea by the mariners, who always made an 
offering as they took leave of its last glimmerings. It is now 
probable, however, that the temple which Cicero described and 
Verres despoiled stood on a site altogether different from that 
of the cathedral, and has been destroyed to the last vestige. 

The modern town contains a museum, which has been 
stocked with fragments of sculpture gathered up in the 
neighborhood. Among these paltry remains of one of the 

* " And after three months we departed in a ship of Alexandria, which 
had wintered in the isle, whose sign was Castor and Pollux. And land- 
ing at Syracuse, we tarried there three days." — Acts of the Apostles, xxviii. 
11, 12. 



THROUGH SICILY. 277 

most powerful and splendid cities of the ancient world we 
find a headless Venus and a colossal head of Zeus, but no 
other important object. 

The entire eastern coast of Sicily is crowded with classic 
reminiscences. Going northward from Catania, we have no 
sooner quitted the city than we begin to observe the huge lava- 
streams which in the course of ages have come hissing down 
the slopes of Etna and poured their fiery masses into the sea. 
The march of the Carthaginian army of Himilco on Syracuse 
was stayed by one of these currents, while, at the same time, 
a short distance off shore, the squadrons of Mago defeated and 
nearly destroyed the Syracusan fleet. In the same vicinity are 
seen, rising out of the surf, the seven rocks which the blinded 
Polyphemus hurled after the crafty Ulysses. A short distance 
farther on we pass Aci Reale, a charming pleasure-resort, 
named from the old Greek fable of Acis, a Sicilian shepherd 
passionately loved by the sea-nymph Galatsea. The sooty 
Etnean Cyclops, Polyphemus, also adored the nymph, but 
was disdained by her, in revenge for which he destroyed Acis 
by rolling a huge stone upon him from an overhanging height. 
Galatsea, inconsolable for the loss of Acis, changed him into a 
stream, which still meanders among the orange-groves. 

Taormina, two hours by rail from Catania, looks down from 
a bluff which rises perpendicularly four hundred feet from the 
margin of the sea. On a pinnacle nine hundred feet higher 
than the town stand the ruined battlements of a Saracen castle, 
still above which the mountains of the coast, brown and bare, 
rise in successive gradations. The views from the town, its 
castle, and particularly from its ruined Greek theatre, are 
among the finest in Sicily. To the right rises the stupendous 
pyramid of Etna, streaked with lava-streams, and perpetually 
discharging steam and smoke from its crater in measureless 
volumes. Between the precipitous part of Etna and the sea 
lie gentle slopes, dressed with orange- and olive-groves and 

24 



278 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WATS. 

dotted with villages. Before us is spread the historic Medi- 
terranean, of marvellous color and myriad transformations of 
light and shadow. Far along the indented coast stretches the 
gleaming outline of foamy waters beating ceaselessly on the 
jagged rocks, while near at hand, almost directly beneath us, 
the little peninsula of Naxos, on which the Greeks planted 
their first Sicilian colony, pierces with its green wedge of 
citron-groves the blue surface of the sea. 

Taormina, the ancient Tauromenium, has a most interesting 
history. Before the advent of the Greeks a stronghold of the 
aboriginal Siculi, it afterwards became an ally of the Cartha- 
ginians, and was unsuccessfully besieged by Dionysius. Within 
its precincts Greek, Roman, and Saracenic architecture mingle 
under the same roof, and Greek, Roman, and Arabian tombs 
are seen in the same mortuary. Its ancient theatre, of Greek 
origin and Roman reconstruction, is, in some respects, the most 
nearly complete and perfect structure of the kind in existence. 
Cut in the natural rock in semicircular form, with a diameter 
of three hundred and fifty-seven feet, its acoustic arrangement 
is such that every word spoken on the stage can be distinctly 
heard at the most remote part of the auditorium. The loca- 
tion of the theatre, on the summit of a lofty cliff rising per- 
pendicularly from the sea, is such as to surround the play 
with a magnificent setting of landscape grandeur. Looking 
towards the stage, we behold the historic and stupendous 
majesty of Mount Etna, itself a mighty participant in the vast 
drama of human affairs. Southward, the eye ranges along the 
coast as far as Catania, thirty miles distant. Below lies the 
sea, above rise the Sicilian mountains. In nothing is the keen 
esthetic intelligence of the Greeks more obvious than in the 
skill with which they have made the sublimity and beauty of 
nature tributary to dramatic art. 

Thirty miles up the coast from Taormina, overhung by the 
sea-side range of mountains, lies another city of ancient origin 



THROUGH SICILY. • 279 

and renown. Seven or eight centuries before the Christian 
era, a colony was established on its present site by Cumsean 
pirates, who gave it the name of Zancle (sickle), because of the 
hooked peninsula which curves around its harbor. At a later 
date it took the name of Messana, — now Messina, — from the 
exiled Messenian Greeks, who made it their place of refuge. 
Situated on one of the greatest commercial highways, and 
possessing one of the finest harbors in the world, it has been, 
like Genoa, an important seaport and trading-place from the 
earliest times to the present. The Greeks regarded it as the 
key of Sicily, and referred to its fruit-bearing sea-girt hills as 
" the beautiful shore." Yet Messana has always been an un- 
lucky place, its very wealth and prosperity tempting conquest 
and inviting misfortune. Four centuries before Christ it was 
captured and destroyed by the Carthaginians under Himilco, 
from whose barbarities a few only of its people escaped. Re- 
built by Dionysius, it was again seized by the Carthaginians, 
from whom, in turn, it was wrested by Timoleon. Later, the 
soldiers of fortune, called Mamertines, — sons of Mars, — ex- 
pelled from Syracuse, became its masters, and invoked for 
themselves and their city the protection of Rome against the 
aggressions of Hannibal. From the intervention thus solicited 
arose the first of the Punic wars, a series of struggles which 
determined the question of supremacy between two rival 
races, and gave direction to the whole vast current of human 
affairs. In the course of its subsequent vicissitudes Messana 
was plundered by Verres and Octavian, made a Roman colony 
by Augustus, and conquered successively by the Saracens and 
Normans. The pilgrim armies of the Crusaders, drifting 
across the Mediterranean to and from the East, made it their 
stopping-place and stronghold, thereby contributing greatly to 
its wealth and power. Afterwards it profited by the favor of 
Charles V., but soon passed the meridian of its prosperity and 
fell into a series of contentions and misfortunes which reduced 



280 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

its population from one hundred and twenty thousand to one- 
tenth of that number. In 1740 the city was scourged by a 
fearful plague, which carried off forty thousand of its people, 
and in 1848 it was visited by cholera, which claimed sixteen 
thousand victims. But these were not its crowning calamities. 
Between Etna and Vesuvius the earthquakes are always most 
violent along the line of contact of the primary and secondary 
formations. In 1783 a series of terrific convulsions took 
place along this line, accompanied by whirlwinds, tempests, 
and a fetid vapor, pungent to the eyes and oppressive to the 
lungs. The shocks continued, at intervals, for fully a year, 
during which period Etna and the volcanoes of the Lipari 
Islands showed increased activity, Vesuvius, meanwhile, re- 
maining silent. Being situated on the axis of extremest 
oscillation, the city of Messina was almost completely wrecked, 
and became, with the suddenness of a lightning stroke, a 
scene of indescribable misery and horror. Murder and rapine 
added their terrors to the tremors of the earth, as if the chaos 
of the elements had set loose a carnival of evil spirits. Thou- 
sands of people were crushed by the fall of buildings or con- 
sumed in the burning debris, while still other thousands were 
drowned by the huge volcanic tidal-wave which rolled through 
the Messinian strait. 

Ten miles north of Messina the Sicilian triangle — Trinacria, 
as the Greeks called it — tapers off to a sharp point, forming 
its north-eastern apex. Sweeping around this point, the Medi- 
terranean currents form an eddy — miscalled a whirlpool — 
which appalled the lively imaginations of the Greek mariners 
and gave rise to one of the most striking tales of the Odyssey. 
The distance between the headlands of the Sicilian coast and 
those of Calabria, on the opposite side of the strait, is here 
but three thousand six hundred yards. Directly across the 
channel from the whirlpool rises a lofty rock, with caverns 
beneath it, in which the action of the waves produces sounds 



THROUGH SICILY. 281 

resembling the barking of dogs. Between the caverns on the 
one side and the vortex on the other all ships must pass. 
Hence the Homeric tale, which narrates that after Ulysses, 
warned by Circe, had escaped the sirens and avoided the 
Wandering Rocks, he approached the terrific Scylla and 
Charybdis, where, as the goddess had foretold, he beheld two 
lofty cliffs, opposite to one another, between which his course 
lay. One of these cliffs rose to such a height that its summit 
was enveloped in perpetual cloud, and could not be scaled by 
man. In the side of this cliff a cave opened towards the west, 
so lofty that a man passing under it in a boat could not shoot 
up to it with a bow. Such was the den of Scylla, a voracious 
sea-monster with twelve feet, the voice of a whelp, and six 
long necks, each bearing a terrific head with three rows of 
close-set teeth. Evermore these necks were stretching forth 
and seizing the sea-dogs, porpoises, and other creatures which 
swam by, and from every ship that passed each mouth took 
out a man. The rock on the opposite shore was not so high 
but that a man could shoot over it. A wild fig-tree grew on 
it, dropping its branches to the water, while beneath it the 
divine Charybdis absorbed and gorged the dark waters three 
times daily. It was much more dangerous to pass Charybdis 
than it was to pass Scylla. As Ulysses sailed between the 
twin perils, Scylla took six of his crew, his ship and com- 
panions were lost, and he, floating upon a mast, was sucked 
into the vortex of Charybdis. Seizing the branches of the 
wild fig-tree, he held on until the swirling waters threw the 
mast out again, when he resumed his voyage. 



24* 



282 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 

By the steamer Amerigo Vespucci, one pleasant May after- 
noon, I sailed from Messina for Naples. The weather was 
inclined to be showery, and masses of cloud hovered upon 
the mountains. Mount Etna was concealed half-way down by 
its own prodigious volumes of smoke, while in Calabria, on 
the opposite side of the strait, a curtain of sluggish vapor 
shrouded the heights of Aspromonte. But as soon as our 
steamer emerged from the strait into the open sea, all sombre 
skies were left to landward, and the majestic cone of Stromboli 
immediately appeared in the far distance, rising in shadowy 
outline from the deep. Directly the other islands of the 
Lipari group came distinctly into view, from Vulcano, with 
its smoking crest, in the foreground, to the steep aud barren 
cliffs of Alicuri, standing far out, dim and solitary, towards 
the meeting-point of sky and ocean. 

Evening was at hand as the Amerigo neared Stromboli, 
and I denied myself half the table d'hote to see the sun go 
down. There was no occasion to regret the sacrifice, for 
when I emerged from the cabin the brilliant spectacle was near- 
ing its crisis, and mountain, sea, and sky were all aflame with 
golden light. The disk of the sun, touching the smoking 
summit of the volcano, seemed to descend into its crater, but, 
as the steamer moved on, emerged again from behind the 
mountain, and glided slowly into the sea, trailing its tremulous 
splendors across the waters. Night came, starry and serene, 
and the darkening shape of Stromboli, with its crown of fire, 
dropped slowly rearward until, standing alone like a mighty 












ift* l « 



ffii f 



tea 




11^ 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 283 

sentinel of the sea, it vanished, as if suddenly veiled by some 
midnight mystery as impenetrable as its own. 
* Soon after sunrise the familiar outlines of Capri were dis- 
tantly perceptible, and rapidly became distinct, together with 
the peninsular heights of Capodimonte, beyond which, domi- 
nating all, rose the shapely cone of Vesuvius, with its white 
masses of ever-issuing vapor swelling upward into the sky. 
Taking the channel between Capri and the mainland, our 
steamer carried us close under the eastern cliffs of the island, 
beyond which it skirted the Sorrento Peninsula, within full 
view of its orange-groves and villas, and sailed up the match- 
less bay towards Naples. The day, the scenes, the experience 
— although not identical with the poet's — were such as to 
bring vividly to my mind, not as a fancy, but as literal truth, 
the lines of Thomas Buchanan Read : 



My soul to-day 

Is far away, 
Sailing the Vesuvian bay ; 

My winged boat, 

A bird afloat, 
Swims round the purple peaks remote. 



Par, vague, and dim, 
The mountains swim, 

"While o'er Vesuvius' misty brim, 
"With outstretched hands, 
The gray smoke stands, 

O'erlookinsr the volcanic lands. 



Here Ischia smiles 
O'er liquid miles, 

And yonder, bluest of the isles, 
Calm Capri waits, 
Her sapphire gates 

Beguiling to her bright estates. 



\ 



284 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

The day so mild 

Is heaven's own child, 
With earth and ocean reconciled ; 

The airs I feel 

Around me steal 
Are murmuring to the murmuring keel. 

Naples, the largest, is to me the most enjoyable city in 
Italy. Its attractions are peculiarly its own. Other cities 
please and instruct, but with La Belle Napoli we fall dead in 
love. Parthenope, her original name, derived from one of the 
sirens cast upon her shores, is still her appropriate title. She 
possesses the secret of the siren's magic, and whom she once 
captivates becomes, for the rest of his life, her adoring slave. 

In historical and architectural interest Naples is far sur- 
passed by Rome and Florence; in commercial and manufac- 
turing enterprise by Genoa ; in cleanliness and the elegant 
display of wealth by Milan and Turin. She is no Queen of the 
Sea like Venice, no traditional patron of learning like Bologna ; 
yet, with all her faults and deficiencies, this frowsy, languid, 
voluptuous child of the sun is more bewitching than any of 
these. Reclining on her vine-wreathed hills, smiled upon by 
her dreamy skies, crowned with semi-tropical blossoms, the 
world's loveliest bay spread blue as sapphire at her feet, she has 
for twenty centuries received the world's admiring homage. 

The light-hearted, joyous, and gentle temperament of the 
Neapolitans, wherein, as in other respects, they differ radi- 
cally from the Florentines, Genoese, or Milanese, may be due 
in part to the influence of climate, and in part to their in- 
herited Greek habits and infusion of Greek blood. Proud 
almost to infatuation of their city and its traditions, content 
with little, always happy in the present and unconcerned for 
the future, their thoughts seldom — their affections never — 
wander from their sunny coasts. They have made no particu- 
lar figure in history, letters, or art ; they have not cared to. 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 285 

Revelling in a climate which permits flowers to bloom in 
February with the luxuriance of June, they live much in the 
open air, in some parts of the city even making their toilets in 
the street, and permitting their children to run about entirely 
naked. In front of a hovel which I happened to pass, a 
corpse awaiting burial lay, in the open street, upon a rude 
bier, surrounded by burning tapers and mourning attendants. 
From my room in the Hotel des Etrangers could be heard the 
songs and serenades of happy, roofless vagrants the whole 
night through. Rome has her carnival once a year, but in 
Naples it is always carnival. Not long since a visitation of 
cholera spread the city with gloom, and hushed its cheerful 
voices for a time; but the calamity resulted in blessing, for it 
was traced directly to defects in the sewerage and water-supply 
systems, both of which were immediately and thoroughly im- 
proved. 

Owing to the attractions of its climate and scenery, Naples 
was a favorite resort of the wealthy, pleasure-loving nobles of 
ancient Rome. Mastered and ruled by Greeks, Romans, 
Goths, Byzantines, and Normans successively, its environs 
abound in reminiscences and celebrated relics of ancient and 
mediaeval times, as well as in scenes of incomparable beauty 
and grandeur. Here are Herculaneum and Pompeii, with 
their unique and impressive mysteries ; Torre del Greco, with 
its solidified lava-streams; Lake Avernus, and its dismal ra- 
vines wherein dwelt the sunless Cimmerians of Homer ; 
Bacioli, where Caesar's villa stood, where Octavia dwelt, and 
where Nero planned the death of his mother ; Cumse, from 
whence the Latin alphabet and the mysterious Sibylline books 
were derived, and where the last of the Tarquins died in exile ; 
Nisida, whither Brutus fled after the murder of Caesar, where 
he was visited by Cicero, and where, taking his last leave of 
Portia, he set out to meet his doom at Philippi ; the hill of 
Posilipo, whereon Pollio, the notorious epicure, built his 



286 EUROPEAN DATS AND WAYS. 

sumptuous villa ; Puteolanum, where Cicero had his country 
residence and the Emperor Hadrian found his tomb; Pozzuoli, 
where St. Paul tarried and the peace ambassadors of Carthage 
disembarked on their way to Rome; Baise, the most famous 
and splendid watering-place of antiquity, notorious for its 
garish degeneracy, and now a desolate ruin ; Ischia, once an 
active volcano, and almost uninhabitable, but now abounding 
in vegetation, famous for its enchanting scenery, and fre- 
quented by pleasure-seekers ;* Capri, where Garibaldi dwelt 
after his sword had cut away the barriers to Italian unity ; 
and lastly, Vesuvius, rising over all, at once grand and terrible, 
— a landmark of the ages. 

An ideal May morning favored my departure from Naples 
for Salerno and Psestum. The railway courses along the mar- 
gin of the bay, and quickly brings us to Portici, built upon 
the lava-streams and beds of volcanic ashes which cover, to 
the depth of forty to one hundred feet, the ancient Herculaneum. 
The discovery of the buried city was made in 1719 by the 
digging of a well, which, at the depth of ninety feet, struck 

* The inhabitants of this island (Ischia) have long been noted for their 
simplicity, and their peculiar dialect, costume, and figure. The Neapoli- 
tan dance known as the tarantella is here seen in its perfection. A 
German writer thus describes it: " Usually it is performed by two girls, 
while a third plays the tambourine and sings. The woes of an absent or 
unhappy lover are usually the theme of the song. The dancers stand op- 
posite to each other, grasp the corners of their broad aprons, and begin 
their evolutions. They place their arms alternately akimbo, while the 
disengaged hand, grasping the apron, raises it high in the air, and occa- 
sionally draws it tightly across the knee. The posture and the manipula- 
tion of the apron change incessantly. At one time the dancers flit past 
each other ; at another, with a slight courtesy and sweep of the foot, give 
the sign to meet again, whereupon they let go their aprons and career 
round in a circle, striking their castanets with upraised hands, or imi- 
tating the sound with their fingers. The caprice of the dancer is capable 
of imparting an entirely different character to the dance, which is gen- 
erally intended to manifest the state of the feelings." 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 287 

the ancient theatre. At that time several beautiful statues 
were exhumed, two of which found their way to the museum 
at Dresden. Additional excavations were made at various 
subsequent periods, and a multitude of treasures were brought 
out, consisting of statues, busts, mural paintings, inscriptions, 
utensils of all kinds, and a papyrus library of three thousand 
rolls. These articles were deposited in the museum at Naples, 
which is the finest — indeed, the only — collection of the kind 
in the world. Entrance to the excavations is made by a 
dark flight of over a hundred steps descending to the theatre. 
Pompeii, being covered with loose scoriae, was ransacked by the 
ancients, who carried off its most valuable articles ; but Hercu- 
laneum, of which the greater part yet remains to be explored, 
was enveloped with hard lava, which has preserved its treas- 
ures for the benefit of posterity. 

The lower slopes of Vesuvius, like those of Etna, are 
clustered with villages, cottages, and luxuriant vineyards. 
Between the volcano and the bay, after quitting Portici, we 
pass Torre del Greco and Torre dell' Annunziata, both flourish- 
ing towns standing upon masses of black rock — now covered 
with soil and vegetation — which once descended from the 
mountain as huge, hissing lava-streams, red with living fire. 
One of these streams, that of 1794, over which the railway 
passes, is seven hundred feet wide and thirty-eight feet in 
thickness. Beyond Torre dell' Annunziata, where we have 
charming views over the bay of Castellamare as far as Sorrento, 
the railway quits the sea-coast, passes ancient Pompeii, and 
crosses the plain of the Sarno. Beyond this plain we entered 
a mountainous district, fertile and beautiful in the extreme. 
The atmosphere, delicately tinged with purple, and fragrant 
with roses and blossoms, was vocal with the singing of birds ; 
valley and mountain were dressed in variegated shades of 
green ; fields of wheat, rye, oats, and Indian corn emulated 
the orange, vine, and citron gardens in their promise of abun- 



288 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

dance ; over all, and ever apparently near, rose the mighty 
shadow of Vesuvius, with its vast volumes of smoke darken- 
ing the sky ; and in whatever direction the eye turned it was 
met by some sublime and beautiful scene. As the train pro- 
ceeds, it rises by steep gradients, and passes many an em- 
bowered village and castle-crowned height of historic interest. 
In a charming valley we pass La Cava, a quaint old town 
built with long arches, like those at Bologna, and much es- 
teemed as a pleasure-resort both for summer and winter. 
Crossing another beautiful district beyond La Cava, we come 
suddenly upon a deep gorge, through which, overlooking the 
pretty village of Vietri, lying far below, we descry the blue 
cerulean of the Mediterranean. Supported by galleries, and 
coursing by cuttings and tunnels along the sides of the rocky 
cliffs, the railway descends beyond Vietri, to the town and 
bay of Salerno. 

The ancient Salernum, which stood upon the heights above 
the present Salerno, is spoken of by one of the Latin poets as 
an illustrious city, in which the men were honest and the 
women beautiful. Gibbon repeats, in his fifth volume, a 
shocking tale of the barbarous and blasphemous treatment of 
its Christian nuns by the Saracen chief who held the town 
under siege. During the ninth and tenth centuries Salerno 
was the capital of a principality of the Lombards, from whom 
it was wrested, after an eight months' siege, by the famous 
Norman leader, Robert Guiscard, who also made himself 
master of the Greek provinces of Calabria and Apulia, and 
the republic of Amalfi. The University of Salerno, changed 
at the beginning of the present century into a lyceum, was 
celebrated during the Middle Ages for its school of medicine, 
then considered the finest in Europe. The great Pope Gregory, 
in the court of whose castle at Canossa the Emperor Henry 
IV., of Germany, was obliged to stand shivering with cold 
for three days while awaiting an interview, and whom Henry, 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 289 

in revenge, afterwards obliged to fly from Rome to the pro- 
tection of Robert Guiscard, died here in 1085. This bold 
and brilliant prelate incurred the enmity of Henry in his 
efforts to extirpate the evils of simony and unchastity from 
the priesthood, and to emancipate the church from political 
interference. His tomb in the cathedral at Salerno is in- 
scribed with his words, spoken in his last moments : " I 
have loved righteousness and hated wickedness ; therefore do I 
die in exile." The cathedral has the further distinction of 
containing the reputed remains of the evangelist St. Matthew, 
brought from the East in 930. 

Having supplied myself with provisions as a precaution 
against the scanty public accommodations on the solitary 
plains of Calabria, I set out from Saleruo, by fiacre, for 
Psestum. For the first three hours we drove upon the great 
Calabrian road through a country mostly level and well cul- 
tivated. Peasants of both sexes, and of all ages, were de- 
ployed in the fields, like an army skirmish line, engaged in 
hoeing corn, curing hay, or gathering cockle out of the wheat. 
Mr. Gladstone remarks, as a deduction from his observations 
during a recent sojourn in Naples, that " no country except 
France, between 1789 and the Empire, has ever undergone, 
in a like space of time, such changes as have passed upon 
Italy in the last twenty years." This observation does not 
exaggerate, and a substantial evidence of its truth is seen in 
the fact that a great deal of the Calabrian land, which now 
produces excellent crops of wheat and other cereals, was, 
twenty years ago, a malarious marsh, frequented only by 
buffaloes, herdsmen, and roving brigands. But while this is 
true, a great deal of such territory, which in ancient times was 
doubtless well cultivated, still remains to be reclaimed. After 
passing Battipaglia, where our course turned south, we entered 
a lonely, sedgy district, touched only at long intervals by the 
plough. A squad of mounted gens d'armes, which accom- 
n t 25 



290 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

panied the post-diligence to protect it and its passengers from 
robbery, was an impressive indication of the pokerish charac- 
ter of this region. As a precaution, I had left most of my 
valuables at Naples, yet I could not forbear some qualms of 
apprehension as I reflected upon the tales which have been 
told of the kidnapping and robbery of tourists on this solitary 
road. 

The red-eyed buffaloes which pasture these unploughed 
plains show neither the timidity nor the noble mien of the 
American bison. The domesticated buffalo of Italy is a ser- 
vile, abject-looking beast, which seems to have abandoned 
itself, like some of the human creatures of these parts, to a life 
of idleness, mendicancy, and uncleanness. The animal's horns, 
which are large and clumsy, are pressed back close upon its 
head, as though servitude had made useless for defence the 
natural armor of which it is possessed as a free-born denizen 
of the plains. To the males the lion-like mane and regal 
spirit of the American buffalo are alike wanting. But these 
uncomely creatures are not destitute of merit ; they thrive in 
the pestilent marshes, and bend their necks patiently to the 
drudgery usually performed by oxen and mules. 

About half an hour from Psestum the river Sele is crossed 
by a lofty stone bridge which some years ago, when the daring 
brigand Manzi and his associates infested these parts, was con- 
sidered the most dangerous part of the road. The Sele is the 
ancient Silarus, whose waters are said to have carried a cal- 
careous sediment which would incrust pieces of wood thrown 
into them. From the basin of this stream the road rises by 
gradual ascent to the summit of a plateau which overlooks the 
site of ancient Psestum, about, a mile distant. Nearly all that 
remains of the city is its walls and its three beautiful temples, 
the brown ruins of which rise in lonely grandeur amid a wide 
plain, extending eastward and southward to the mountains, 
and westward, by a gentle slope, to the Mediterranean. 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 291 

Peestuni, anciently known as Posidonia, or City of Neptune, 
was founded by Lucanian Greeks, about six centuries before 
Christ. The founders were from Sybaris, a city so noted for 
its opulence and luxury that Sybarite and voluptuary were 
synonymous terms. Prior to its conquest by the Romans, in 
273 B.C., little is known of Posidonia, except that it was 
probably a city of considerable splendor and maritime impor- 
tance. As a Roman colony, known by the Latin name of 
Psestum, it rapidly declined. Its people, never reconciled to 
their subjugation, were accustomed to meet in solemn assem- 
bly, on the anniversary of one of their Greek festivals, to com- 
memorate their ancient rites, language, and customs, and 
lament the loss of their liberties ; after which ceremonies they 
dispersed in silence to their homes. The devastation of the 
place by the Saracens in the ninth century completed its ruin. 
Deserted by its people, who had fled to the mountains, it was 
despoiled of its sculptures and monuments, in the eleventh 
century, by Robert Guiscard. For centuries after that all 
that remained of the splendid city was wholly neglected. The 
ground whereon it stood is now overgrown with weeds and 
brambles, excepting the space occupied by a fiixv hovels and 
patches of wheat. Among its scattered stones, which once 
rose in forms of beauty, lizards and serpents glide, the grass- 
hopper chirrups, and the wild fern flourishes. Of the famous 
roses of Psestum, — biferi rosaria Pcssti, — which bloomed in 
May and December, and were extolled by the Roman poets 
for their wonderful fragrance, no trace remains. 

The temples, excepting those at Athens the finest existing 
specimens of the ancient Greek style, stand in line a few hun- 
dred yards apart. The most imposing and beautiful is that in 
the centre, called the Temple of Neptune, sixty-three yards 
long and twenty-eight wide, with thirty-six massive fluted 
Doric columns, — six at the front, six at the rear, and twelve 
on a side, — each twenty-eight feet high and seven and a half 



292 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

feet in diameter. In the interior the cella is flanked on each 
side by a series of eight columns, each six feet in diameter, 
supporting a row of smaller columns, on which the roof 
rested. Both the roof and — on one side — the smaller columns 
have disappeared. This temple, like the others, is built of 
travertine, hard and durable in its primitive state, but now 
browned by age and corroded by the elements. Fossil reeds 
and aquatic plants are embedded in the stone, the imperfections 
of which were concealed originally by a covering of stucco. 
The columns, perfect in their symmetry and proportions, are 
not monoliths, but are laid up in separate pieces, the flutings 
of which are joined with exactness. As a whole, the edifice 
conveys an impression of solemnity and of strength and beauty 
of proportions. Its architecture, of the oldest and purest 
Greek type, commands both admiration and respect, even awe 
and reverence. It awakens the consciousness that we are 
in- the presence of something majestic, powerful, and sol- 
emn. A religion, even a superstition, could not fail to take 
strong hold upon the imagination when so dignified and exalted 
by art. 

The second temple, less majestic in its proportions than 
that of Neptune, and of more recent origin, though of great 
antiquity, is known by the inappropriate term Basilica. Its 
length is fifty-nine yards, its breadth twenty-six and a half 
yards. Of its exterior columns, each six and a half feet in 
diameter, there are nine at the front, nine in rear, and sixteen 
upon a side. They curve outward considerably, and taper to- 
wards the capitals, which are in the form of a flat button. 
The central space of the edifice is elevated about four feet 
above the outer portion, and is crossed by a row of columns, 
dividing it into two equal sections. 

The Temple of Vesta, standing some hundreds of yards north 
of the fane of Neptune, is a perfect gem of architectural sym- 
metry. Its length is thirty-five yards, its width fifteen. The 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 293 

columns of its peristyle, each five feet in diameter and tapering 
upward, are thirty-four in number, of which there are six at 
each end and eleven on a side. The columns of the vestibule 
differ from the others in the style of their fluting. Although 
this temple is not so large as either of the others, it is scarcely 
inferior to them in imposing effect. It is not, indeed, the size 
of these edifices which gives them their impressive quality, so 
much as their majesty of proportion, conveying the impression 
of strength and dignity. They possess the architectural secret 
of seeming to be much larger than they really are. The more 
we study them the better they satisfy the eye. There is 
nothing too large or too small ; nothing incongruous ; nothing 
to be added, except what time has consumed and vandalism 
removed ; nothing to be taken away, except, if they could be 
spared, the unsightly clamps and bars which have recently 
been put up to hold the crumbling stones in their places. 

But the uncouth iron bracings, much as we deplore them, 
must remain ; without their friendly support many a cornice- 
stone and tottering column would go to the ground. A small 
guard of Italian soldiers lingers about the temples to prevent 
their further despoilment. Unless thus watched and cared for 
by the government, these splendid monuments of ancient art 
would soon be little better than heaps of stones; we marvel, 
indeed, that they have stood so long. Since they first rose in 
beauty on these plains more than twenty centuries have sped 
away, more than twenty generations have come and gone. 
Verily, they who built these stately fanes built more wisely 
than they knew. 

Excepting the temples, nothing of the city remains which 
strongly enlists our attention. The conjectural location of the 
forum is in front of the Temple of Neptune, because of the 
foundations of pedestals for altars and statues which have 
there been found. Of the populous streets which once re- 
sounded with the clamor of traffic, and sometimes with the 

25* 



294 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

tramp of armies, there remain only some scraps of pavement. 
The location of the theatre, where doubtless the gay population 
of the ancient city disported itself, can be but faintly traced. 
Some fallen metopse, overrun with briers, some scraps of an 
aqueduct, and some mural towers, ruined and dismal, but mock 
our curiosity. The beautiful city which stood here has van- 
ished, leaving behind it only some mouldy remnants of its 
splendor and the sad story of its conquest, desertion, and 
decay. 

Returning from Pactum to Salerno, I set out the following 
morning by fiacre for Amain. The drive by the magnificent 
coast-road from Salerno to Amalfi is the most celebrated in 
Italy. The indented coast-line consists of a series of rocky 
cliffs rising almost perpendicularly from the sea, the boldest 
promontories being crowned with massive Martello towers 
built in the time of Charles V. as a protection against pirates. 
Cut into the faces of these cliffs, the road ascends and descends 
alternately, sometimes reaching a height of five hundred feet 
above tide- water, and sometimes passing pretty villages, with 
terraced gardens, squeezed into the ravines along the beach. 
All the elevated parts of the road afford magnificent views 
over the bay of Salerno, on the opposite side of which, it is 
said, the ruins of Psesturn may sometimes be discerned. The 
most favorable point is that where the road, at a height of 
several hundred feet, bends sharply around the Capo Tumolo, 
from whence the eye ranges over the bay, and far along the 
surf-beaten coast from Salerno to Amalfi, and beyond. On 
the bay, nearly opposite this promontory, the fleet of Charles 
"V. was defeated by Filippino Doria. 

In the sheltered nooks of this sunny shore the olive, orange, 
lemon, and vine grow luxuriantly, clothing the lower slopes 
of the mountains with a rich vesture of green and gold. 
Through the surf, which rolls lazily, flashing its snowy foam 
upon the rocks, or advancing and receding on the sloping 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 295 

beach, the peasants draw their nets ashore, men, women, and 
children assisting one another in the task. These simple peo- 
ple were to be envied, it seemed to me, for their sequestered 
life, apparently so devoid of care, amid a clime so genial, 
where Nature is at once so lovely and so bounteous. 

The sway of the Saracens has strongly impressed itself upon 
the villages of this coast. Cetara, lying in the secluded cove 
where these corsairs first settled ; Ptatto, looking down from a 
height over the bay ; Maiori, with its terraced lemon-gardens 
and ruined monastery and castle, at the entrance to the Val 
Tramonti ; Minori, once the arsenal of Amalfi, embowered 
among aloe- and lemon-trees, at the mouth of the Reginolo ; 
Atrani, a quaint old town squeezed into a ravine, up the sides 
of which its houses clamber one above another ; Pontone, above 
Atrani, and Ravello, above both, all contain churches and 
other edifices, of mediaeval date, in the Saracenic style. The 
patriot Masaniello, whose tragic career is the theme of one of 
Auber's operas, dwelt near Pontone. 

The rocky height which bears the ruins of the castle of 
Pontone projects into the sea, separating Atrani from the his- 
toric city of Amalfi, which, mounting the cliffs from its wave- 
washed strand, overlooks its pretty bay, skirted by precipitous 
rocks and imposing mountains. During the early part of the 
Middle Ages the commercial renown of Amalfi was world- 
wide. Under the protection of the Byzantine emperors it be- 
came the gate-way through which the western world was sup- 
plied with the products of the East. Fifty thousand citizens, 
says Gibbon, were numbered within its walls, " nor was any city 
more abundantly provided with gold, silver, and the objects of 
precious luxury. The mariners who swarmed in her port ex- 
celled in the theory and practice of navigation and astronomy ; 
and the discovery of the compass, which has opened the globe, 
is due to their ingenuity or good fortune. Their trade was 
extended to the coasts, or at least to the commodities of Africa, 



298 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Arabia, and India ; and their settlements in Constantinople, 
Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria acquired the privileges of 
independent colonies." 

There is one qualification only to be made to these state- 
ments of the great historian. It is claimed, it is true, that 
Flavio Gioja, a native of Amalfi, discovered the mariner's 
compass there in 1302, but the uses of the magnetic needle in 
navigation were known to the Chinese prior to that time. 
What Gioja probably did was to make important improve- 
ments in the instrument, thereby greatly enlarging the sphere 
of its usefulness. 

Amalfi reached the zenith of her prosperity while acting as 
an independent state, like Venice, under the presidency of a 
doge ; but her commercial success soon provoked the jealousy 
of Pisa and Genoa, and involved her in dangerous contentions 
with the neighboring princes of Salerno, and the Norman 
sovereigns of Naples. After three centuries of prosperity, the 
city was subjugated by the Normans under King Roger, and 
sacked by the Pisans, who carried off the precious manuscripts 
of the Pandects of Justinian, then in the custody of Amalfi, 
and now in the Laurentian library at Florence. At a later 
date, Amalfi passed under the supremacy of the dynasties of 
Anjou and Arragon, from which event the place steadily de- 
clined in trade and population until, at the beginning of the 
present century, its inhabitants numbered barely one thousand. 
Its present population is about seven thousand, mostly, accord- 
ing to my first impressions, cieerones and beggars. 

The cathedral, which I set out to visit, dogged up to its very 
portal by a clamorous swarm of mendicants and guides, is a 
richly-decorated edifice of the eleventh century, in the Lom- 
bard-Norman style, with a facade and campanile composed of 
black and white stone in alternate layers. The body of the 
apostle St. Andrew, from whom the church is named, is said 
to repose in its crypt, having been brought thither from Con- 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 297 

stantinople in the thirteenth century. The portal, supported 
by antique columns from Psestum, contains bronze doors of 
Byzantine workmanship, inscribed in letters of silver. The 
interior is gorgeous with mosaics and antique reliefs, columns, 
and sculptures, mostly taken from the ancient Greek temples. 
A colossal statue of St. Andrew was presented to the church 
by Philip III., of Spain. 

The finest view to be had within the town of Amalfi is ob- 
tained from the vine-wreathed veranda of the Capuchin mon- 
astery, now used as a naval school. The building is perched 
upon one of the shoulders of a rocky ledge which rises some 
hundreds of feet abruptly from the sea. From a recess in the 
rock, used as a Calvary, near the monastery, a most delightful 
prospect is had of the town, the coast, and the blue, sunlit 
waters of the bay. For a still wider and more magnificent 
view we climb to the old town of Ravello, famous for its 
Moorish architecture, on the summit of a lofty height, rising 
directly above Amalfi. In the twelfth century Ravello was a 
prosperous city, with nearly forty thousand inhabitants; now 
it is a lifeless, moss-grown village of eighteen hundred souls. 
The cathedral, a modernized structure of the eleventh cen- 
tury, contains an episcopal throne and a magnificent ambo, 
resting on six columns, supported by lions, and completely 
covered with costly mosaics. The Palazzo Rufalo, a building 
of the twelfth century, in the Saracenic style, was occupied at 
different times by Pope Adrian IV., King Charles II., and 
Robert the Wise. Its adjacent garden overlooks the sea from 
a height of twelve hundred and twenty feet. 

Descending from Ravello along the southern face of the 
great ravine which cleaves the mountains asunder at Amalfi, I 
found myself on a solitary path, shadowed here and there 
by the foliage of the orange and the aloe. No cloud was per- 
ceptible in the pure cerulean of the sky, and no sound ruffled 
the tranquil atmosphere save the hum of bees, the twitter of 



298 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

birds, and drowsy murmurs ascending from the torrent in the 
depths of the ravine. Charmed with the beauty and luxuriance 
of the scene, so strikingly incongruous with the hideous men- 
dicancy which had assailed me at every turn in Amalfi and 
Ravello, I was suddenly startled from my reverie by the voice 
of a plump little maid who emerged from her ambuscade by 
the way-side and pleaded for a soldo. Her voice was soft and 
melodious, and her dark, lustrous eyes spoke more eloquently 
than her tongue. According to the fashion of -the country, 
her gayly-colored gown was gracefully looped so as to expose 
her daintily-slippered feet and shapely ankles; her black hair 
fell massively upon her brown, bare shoulders; and while one 
little hand was persuasively extended, the other was dramati- 
cally laid upon her swelling, palpitating breast. In this atti- 
tude, with tantalizing display of rosy lips and teeth such as 
the poet King Solomon describes in his allegorical rhapsodies, 
she implored once again a soldo, in return for a single oscilla- 
tory privilege. It was a purely commercial proposition ; the 
goods offered for sale were well worth the money. But it is 
better to draw the curtain here. [Possibly the scene just de- 
scribed may have gained something from my fancy and the 
intoxicating effect of the delicious climate, but the picture has 
at least a framework of fact.] 

There being, at the time of my visit, no road along the 
rocky and precipitous coast west of Amalfi, I had determined 
to proceed in that direction, as far as Scaricatojo, by canoe. 
Divining my purpose, a horde of harrying commissionnaires 
pursued me to the beach, eager to do my contracting w T ith the 
boatmen ; but, believing I could just as well manage the nego- 
tiations myself, I hastened to awaken a stalwart fellow who 
lay asleep on the sand in the shadow of his half-inverted 
dory. Seeing they were likely to be balked, the avaricious 
commissionnaires rushed in a body to arouse my man's sleeping 
companion, hoping to be paid for that service; but before their 



AROUND THE SORRENTO PENINSULA. 299 

victim had recovered from the surprise and confusion of their 
onslaught my bargain was struck and the dory was being 
pushed into the water. A moment later we were afloat upon 
the bay, and my discomfited persecutors ceased to be anything 
more to me than an unpleasant memory. 

Amalfi, rising in terraces from its beach, its white-walled 
dwellings mingling with the rich foliage of its gardens, the 
crag above it crowned with a massive ruined tower, formed, as 
it appeared — steadily receding — from the placid waters of the 
bay, a most pleasing picture, which can never fade from my 
memory. For some distance we cruised along wave-beaten 
walls of towering rock, above which the mountains, dressed 
with olive-groves and vines, and dotted with chateaux and vil- 
lages, lay sloping to the sun. As we rounded the rocky point 
of Capo Sottile and pushed out into the bay of Positano, the 
pretty town of Positauo appeared on the heights above. Sud- 
denly one of the oarsmen, who spoke French, exclaimed, " Volld, 
monsieur, un grand poisson V Sure enough, at a distance of 
some hundreds of yards, a large porpoise was circling about us 
with the speed of an arrow, sometimes throwing his head and 
sometimes his tail out of the water, as if in mockery and defi- 
ance. After ridiculing us to his heart's content, he made one 
superlative gyration and disappeared. 

A most delightful voyage of three hours ended at Scaricatojo, 
which is nothing but a lonely fishing-station, comprising a hut 
or two upon the beach, overhung by lofty cliffs. As I stepped 
upon the strand, about a dozen people — men, women, and chil- 
dren — met and welcomed me as if I were an old friend, even 
a relative. But the case was one of hasty hail and farewell, 
for within a few minutes after landing I had employed a guide 
and was climbing the heights on my way over the peninsula 
to Sorrento. The ascent, prolonged by my frequent halts to 
enjoy the enchanting views of the bay and its coast, and to 
watch the course of my faithful and valiant oarsmen on their 



300 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

way back to Amalfi, lasted about an hour and a half. In 
Sorrento, two hours later, I had the pleasure of enjoying an 
ideal Italian sunset from the piazza of the Hotel Victoria 
(formerly Villa Rispoli), overlooking the Bay of Naples. 



CHAPTER XX. 

POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 

The drive from Sorrento to Castellamare nobly rivals, in 
the sublimity and beauty of its scenes, that from Salerno to 
Amalfi. It is one of the most delightful excursions in Italy. 
Diverging from the precipitous shore of the bay, the road 
crosses the Piano di Sorrento, a famous plateau, sheltered by 
mountains, sloping gently towards the sea, and covered with 
the mingled foliage of the orange, lemon, olive, pomegranate, 
grape, aloe, and almond. This favored district was a fashion- 
able resort in ancient Roman times, and has ever since been 
much esteemed as a salubrious and tranquil retreat. 

On the northern side of the Piano, forming its boundary in 
that direction, rises the Monte di Scutolo, which pushes its 
rocky buttress far out into the bay, terminating in a lofty 
promontory. Rising by a long gradient, the road skirts this 
headland at a height which overlooks the entire bay from 
Naples to Capri, then descends amid olive plantations and 
vineyards to the dual town of Vico-Equa, situated upon a 
rocky eminence, the site of an ancient village. From Vico we 
follow the coast-line to Castellamare, built on the site of the 
ancient Stabise, and having the character and appearance of a 
miniature Naples. Stabise shared, with other villages of the 
coast, the fate of Pompeii, when that city was buried under 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 301 

the ashes of Vesuvius. The naturalist Pliny, whose nephew's 
letter to the historian Tacitus contains the only circumstantial 
account we have of the eruption, was at that time in command 
of a Roman squadron lying in the bay, near Misenum. 
Tempted by scientific curiosity, and also by the wish to succor 
the perishing, he was suffocated near Stabire by volcanic gases 
and falling scoriae. 

Setting forth in the early morning, I drove, in about an 
hour, from Castellamare to Pompeii, passing through a level 
country once an arid bed of ashes, but now fertile as a garden. 
Originally the town of Pompeii stood on the margin of the 
bay, but the eruption of 79 produced such changes in the 
coast as to leave it more than a mile inland. The place had a 
very ancient origin ; how ancient is not precisely known. 
Though founded by the Oscans, it soon became thoroughly 
Greek, and after the Samnite wars passed under the dominion 
of Rome, It was therefore an epitome of the mingled Greek 
and Roman ancient life. Having considerable commerce and 
a lucrative inland trade, its wealth, the beauty of its situation, 
and the refinement and gayety of its people made it enjoyable 
both as a pleasure-resort and as a place of permanent residence. 
Cicero purchased estates in its vicinity, and many wealthy 
Romans made it their favorite retreat. Its remains abound in 
tokens of elegant luxury, pompous idolatry, and voluptuous 
living. Its population, estimated by some of the best authori- 
ties at not over twenty thousand, probably never exceeded forty 
thousand. 

The eruption by which Pompeii and its neighboring cities 
were overwhelmed was the first Vesuvian outbreak of which 
we have any record. Fifty years before that event, Strabo, 
writing in the time of Augustus, describes Mount Vesuvius as 
an extinct volcano, covered with beautiful meadows, excepting 
its summit. Diodorus Siculus, a historian of the same period, 
says the mountain exhibited signs of ancient internal fires. 

26 



302 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

But since the beginning of the Christian era the history of the 
volcano has been one of intermittent activit} 7 , with rare inter- 
vals of tireless quiescence. The eruptions of Porapeiian cele- 
brity were followed, in succession, by nine others prior to the 
year 1500; since that year there have been over fifty. Ashes 
were carried from the eruption of 472 as far as Constantinople, 
and from that of 512 to Tripoli. During the next ten centu- 
ries there were various periods of activity, some of which lasted 
for many years continuously. Then followed over a century 
of calm, during which the mountain was overgrown with trees 
and herbage, and cattle grazed within its crater. Meanwhile, 
a volcanic cone, now called Monte Nuovo, was upheaved near 
Pozzuoli, and Etna, which sneezes when Vesuvius takes snuff, 
and vice versa, was laboring incessantly. In 1631 the Cyclo- 
pean snuff-box was passed over to Etna, and Vesuvius broke 
its long quiescence by a terrific eruption, during which a cloud 
of smoke and ashes rapidly spread over all Southern Italy, 
casting at mid-day the gloom of night. The earth was con- 
vulsed by an earthquake, stones of great weight were thrown 
from the crater a distance of fifteen miles, and seven lava- 
streams, accompanied by torrents of boiling water, poured 
from the mountain, overwhelming all the towns around its 
base, and destroying over three thousand human lives. This 
eruption, lasting nearly three months, is the first of which we 
have a complete circumstantial account, It reduced the height 
of the cone by more than fifteen hundred feet. 

After various intermediate disturbances, — notably that of 
1794, when ashes were carried as far as Chieti and Taranto, 
and an enormous lava-stream poured through the town of 
Torre del Greco into the bay, — -the volcano broke forth again, 
in 1779, on a stupendous scale. Masses of sluggish, cottony 
vapor, which enveloped the mountain and piled themselves far 
above it, were succeeded by columns of fire, which shot up to 
three times its height. Vast quantities of red-hot stones, some 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 303 

of them over a hundred pounds in weight, were hurled two 
thousand feet into the air. 

Within the present century twenty-three eruptions have 
taken place, of which at least ten were important. That of 
1861, by which Torre del Greco was laid waste for the fourth 
or fifth time, was witnessed by Humboldt and other men of 
science. In 1822 the whole top of the mountain was broken 
up, and an elliptical chasm was formed three miles in circum- 
ference and two thousand feet deep. But the culminating 
events in the recent history of the volcano fall within the 
period of activity which began in January, 1871, when a 
stream of lava began to pour through a fissure on the north- 
east side. During the following autumn a second stream 
broke through the cone on its western side, the lava-currents 
never pouring over the top of the crater, but always forcing an 
outlet through the mass of scoriae at some distance below the 
summit. The symptoms of violence began to increase early in 
1872, and continued to do so until the 24th of April, in that 
year, on which date and the six days following a tremendous 
outpouring of smoke and flame was succeeded by the bursting 
forth of lava-streams on all sides of the mountain. One of 
these streams issued with such suddenness as to overtake and 
roast to death twenty persons in a crowd of spectators who 
were watching the eruption. Many other persons who had 
ventured too near were hurt by stones thrown from the crater. 
A prodigious lava-torrent, twenty feet deep and three thou- 
sand feet wide, descended at the rate of three miles in twelve 
hours, partially destroying the villages of Massa and Sari 
Sebastiano, and laying waste a large area of cultivated land. 
Terrific explosions were heard in the crater, which emitted 
huge volumes of smoke and discharged red-hot stones and lava 
to the height of four thousand feet. The streets of Naples 
were deluged with black sand, and clouds of ashes were car- 
ried as far as Cosenza, one hundred and forty miles distant. 



304 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

The ancient Pompeiians who gazed upon and admired the 
beauteous groves and pastures which covered the symmetrical 
cone up to the very rim of its smokeless, silent crater must 
have had but a faint idea of the real nature of their terrible 
neighbor. But in the year 63 they received a most impressive 
and — had it been heeded — timely warning of what they were 
to expect. A fearful earthquake shook down their temples, 
colonnades, and dwellings, giving awful premonition of the 
reawakening of the stupendous forces of Nature which had 
been slumbering for centuries. The city was a wreck, but it 
was immediately rebuilt, and was greatly improved by con- 
forming its architecture more nearly than before to the style 
of imperial Rome. A reaction from the depressing effects of 
disaster was at high tide, and Pompeii was doubtless more 
splendid and more gay than ever when, on the 24th of 
August, 79, it was overtaken by the supreme catastrophe, the 
details of which, in the absence of authentic narrative, have 
been supplied by the romance of Bulwer. First came a dense 
shower of ashes, which covered the town to the depth of three 
feet, impelling most of its inhabitants to fly from its precincts. 
This was followed by a delusive lull, during which many of 
the fugitives returned to seek their valuables, and perhaps to 
care for the sick and infirm who could not be readily removed. 
But directly the shower of ashes was succeeded by a heavy 
rain of red-hot cinders and pumice, called rapilii, from which 
there was no escape. This covered the town with another 
stratum seven to eight feet thick, burning the wooden upper 
stories from the houses, and extinguishing the last vestige of 
animal life. On top of this the remorseless Cyclops shook 
down more showers of ashes, and then fiery rapilii, until the 
superincumbent mass attained an average thickness of twenty 
feet, and the beautiful city of the Sarno was literally smothered, 
buried alive, with scarcely a single trace of it above ground. 

For nearly seventeen centuries Pompeii, except as a name 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 305 

and memory, disappeared from history. In ancient times its 
ruins were ransacked, partly by the survivors of its wreck, in 
recovering their valuables and the dead bodies of their friends, 
and partly in the search for decorative materials with which to 
embellish temples and other buildings. In this way the city 
was stripped of nearly everything easily accessible which was 
w 7 orth carrying away. Subsequent Vesuvian eruptions covered 
it still more deeply, vegetation grew over it, and a village 
bearing its name rose upon the ground which covered its an- 
cient site. During the Middle Ages the place was entirely 
unknown. In 1592 a subterranean aqueduct, which is in use 
to this day, was carried under it without leading to its dis- 
covery. In 1748 some statues and bronze utensils, discovered 
by a peasant, attracted the attention of the reigning King of 
Naples and Sicily, Charles III., who caused excavations to be 
made. At that time the theatre, amphitheatre, and other 
portions of the buried town were brought to light, discoveries 
which caused great surprise and enthusiasm throughout the 
civilized world. The muse of Schiller broke forth in this 
exclamatory strain : 

What wonder here ! Of thee, Earth, a fount 
Have we invoked, and from thy sombre womb 
What yieldest thou ? Is life in the abyss ? 
And dwells a new race there till now concealed 
Beneath the lava? Doth the past return? 
O Greeks, O Romans, come ! Behold again 
Rises the old Pompeii, and rebuilt 
The long-lost town of Dorian Hercules, 
House on house ! 

■»#%*#■*# 
The earth, with faithful watch, has guarded all ! 

Under the Bourbon dynasty the excavations were very im- 
perfectly carried on, only statues and valuables being taken out, 
and the ruins afterwards covered up again, or suffered to fall 
into decay. Under the French dominion, the Forum, the 
u 26* 



306 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WATS. 

Street of the Tombs, and many private houses were uncovered ; 
but after the fall of Murat the work relaxed again, so that as 
late as 1860 not more than one-third of the town had been 
laid bare. The new regime which came in with Victor Em- 
manuel imparted a fresh stimulus to the work. In 1863 the 
archaeologist Fiorelli was appointed by the government to 
supervise the excavations, which have since that time kept a 
corps of workmen constantly employed. Fiorelli estimates 
that at the present rate of progress the complete excavation of 
the town can be accomplished in seventy years, at an expendi- 
ture of about one million dollars. What further discoveries 
will be made can only be conjectured, but undoubtedly many 
revelations of intense interest await the search of the archaeo- 
logical spade. 

The excavated portion of the city, together with its museum 
and library, are under the care of a corps of government 
guides, who, for a European wonder, are forbidden to accept 
gratuities. Quite agreeably to me, my visit fell on a holiday, 
when the guides were off' duty, so that I was permitted to 
wander at will among the silent streets, unembarrassed by long 
and apocryphal verbal explanations. A previous visit had 
familiarized me with the principal streets, buildings, and 
localities, so that I had no difficulty in finding my way. Be- 
sides a considerable region which had been excavated since my 
first visit, eighteen months before, there were some important 
buildings which I had not then been able to inspect. Among 
these was the Villa Diomed, so conspicuous in Bulwer's 
romance. This villa — more properly speaking, the house of 
M. Arrius Diomedes — was one of the largest and most splen- 
did of the Pompeiian residences, and, in addition to the usual 
conveniences and luxuries of an elegant mansion of that day, 
enclosed an interior" court, or garden, one hundred and seven 
feet square, open to the sky, surrounded by a colonnade, and 
embellished by a central fountain. 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 307 

Beneath this court, on three sides, are long vaulted cham- 
bers, reached by stairways and lighted by narrow apertures in 
the upper pavement. These cellars, now entirely cleared of 
rubbish, are believed to have been used in the summer season 
as family promenades. "In them," says Bulwer, "twenty 
skeletons (two of them babes, embracing) were discovered in 
one spot by the door, covered by a fine ashen dust that had 
evidently been slowly wafted through the apertures until it 
had filled the whole space. There were jewels and coins, and. 
candelabra for unavailing light, and wine, hardened in the 
amphora?, for a prolongation of agonized life. The sand, con- 
solidated by damps, had taken the forms of the skeletons as in 
a cast, and the traveller may yet see the impression of a female 
neck and bosom, of young and round proportions, the trace of 
the fated Julia ! It seems to the inquirer as if the air had 
been gradually changed into a sulphurous vapor; the inmates 
of the vaults had rushed to the door and found it closed and 
blocked up by the scoriae without, and, in their attempts to 
force it, had been suffocated with the atmosphere. 

" In the garden was found a skeleton with a key by its bony 
hand, and near it a bag of coins. This is believed to have 
been the master of the house, the unfortunate Diomed, who 
had probably sought to escape by the garden, and been de- 
stroyed either by the vapors or some fragment of stone. Be- 
side some silver vases lay another skeleton, probably a slave." 

The impression of a girl's breast in the ashes, which Bul- 
wer's fancy represents as the sole remaining trace of one of his 
heroines, is still preserved in the museum at Naples, and is as 
shapely and perfect as if the flesh of the fair young victim had 
been moulded but yesterday instead of eighteen hundred years 
ago. The bodies found in the Diomedan corridors had their 
heads wrapped up, and were half covered by the fine infiltrated 
ashes, in which was preserved even the imprint of the chemises 
worn by the women and children. The bodies had decayed, 



308 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

like those embedded in other parts of the town, but their 
forms had been moulded in the ashes with wonderful precision 
and distinctness. 

In many cases such cavities, after the skeletons contained in 
them had been carefully removed, were filled with liquid plas- 
ter, which produced an accurate and durable image of the im- 
printed form. The museum at Pompeii contains a collection 
of such images, which impress upon the beholder, more vividly, 
perhaps, than any other objects, the horror and, consternation 
of those awful days when the rain of volcanic ashes turned 
noon to night and overwhelmed the doomed city. One of 
these figures is that of a girl with a ring on her finger ; an- 
other, that of a woman enceinte; a third, a man whose features 
are singularly distinct and natural. A group of three includes 
father, mother, and daughter, found lying near one another. 
The figure of a female shows even the folds of her drapery and 
the arrangement of her hair. The attitudes are generally 
those which follow a short and fierce death-struggle. Some 
of the victims seem to have fallen upon their faces and died 
suddenly in their flight. Others, who were perhaps asphyx- 
iated by vapors, have the calm attitude of sleep, as though 
death had been but a pleasant dream. 

Near the Great Theatre an open court, with a peristyle of 
seventy-four columns, is surrounded by a series of detached 
cells. This is supposed to have been a barrack for confine- 
ment of the gladiators who were chosen for the contests of the 
arena. Sixty-three skeletons found here are believed to have 
been those of soldiers who remained on duty during the erup- 
tion. In one of the chambers, used as a prison, the skeletons 
of two presumable criminals were found, together with the 
stocks and irons with which they were bound for punishment. 
The story that the people were assembled, in great numbers, 
to witness some spectacular entertainment at the time the 
volcano began to belch upon them its rain of ashes is probably 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 309 

a myth. The theatre had been badly wrecked by the earth- 
quake of 63, and its restoration was yet far from complete 
when the eruption broke forth. 

The streets of Pompeii are generally narrow, not over 
twenty-four, some of them not over fourteen, feet in width, 
and are paved with blocks of lava, with high stepping-stones 
at intervals, for the convenience of foot-passengers in rainy 
weather. At the street-corners public fountains are placed? 
from which the water poured through the decorative head of a 
god, a mask, or some similar ornament. Trade signs are rare, 
but political announcements are frequently seen, conspicuously 
printed in red letters. Phallic emblems, boldly cut in stone 
and built into the walls, surprise and shock us by their fre- 
quency, notwithstanding their innocently-meant purpose as a 
means of protection against witchcraft. 

The architecture of the temples and other public buildings 
is a clumsy mixture of the Greek and Roman style, the col- 
umns being invariably laid up in brick or travertine, and 
covered with stucco. The dwellings, built of the same ma- 
terials, or of travertine, have very little exterior adornment. 
Yet at the time of its catastrophe Pompeii must have been a 
highly-decorated town. Marble was but little used archi- 
tecturally, but the stucco which took its place was admirably 
adapted to decorative painting, and this means of ornamenta- 
tion was lavishly employed. The lower halves of the columns 
are generally painted red, with harmonizing colors on the 
capitals. Interior walls are also laid with bright, gay color- 
ing, usually red or yellow. But the most attractive and strik- 
ing of the mural decorations are the paintings, the wonderful 
variety and delicacy of which are only surpassed by the more 
astonishing wonder of their preservation. The subjects of 
these pictures are generally drawn from poetry or mythology, 
as, for instance, Theseus abandoning Ariadne, Ulysses relating 
his adventures to Penelope, Cupid holding a mirror up to 



310 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Venus, Apollo and the Muses, Polyphemus receiving Galatea's 
letter from Cupid, Leda and the Swan, Diana surprised in her 
bath by Actseon, Achilles and Patroclus, and representations of 
Venus, Cupid, Bacchus, Silenus, Mercury, and the fauns in 
endless variety. A favorite subject was the beautiful youth 
Narcissus, son of the river-god Cephisns and the nymph 
Liriope. According to the Greek fable, this youth, seeing his 
image in a fountain, became enamoured of it, and, in punish- 
ment for his hardness of heart towards Echo and other 
nymphs, pined away and was changed to a flower. In con- 
sequence of its origin this flower loves the borders of streams, 
and, bending on its fragile stem, seems to seek its own image 
in the waters, but soon fades and dies. 

The larger and finer dwellings of Pompeii have generally 
been named from their supposed possessors, or from the works 
of art found in them. The House of the Tragic Poet, so 
called from the representation of a poet reading found in its 
tablinium, was one of the most elegant in Pompeii. Prom the 
pavement of its vestibule was taken a celebrated mosaic, now 
in the museum at Naples, representing a chained dog barking, 
with the legend cave canem, — beware of the dog. The periph- 
ery of the columns of the peristyle is fluted, except the lower 
third of the shaft, which is smooth and painted red. The 
walls of the interior are decorated with paintings, among which 
are Venus and Cupid fishing, Diana with Orion, and a repre- 
sentation of Leda and Tyndarus, which is very beautiful and 
remarkably well preserved. This house, which figures in 
Bulwer's "Last Days of Pompeii" as the home of Glaucus, 
was probably the dwelling of a goldsmith. 

One of the most palatial residences yet brought to light is 
the House of Pansa, — one hundred and twenty-four by three 
hundred and nineteen feet, — which finely illustrates, in its 
complete and well-preserved appointments, the plan of an 
aristocratic Pompeiian mansion of the imperial epoch. Enter- 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 311 

ing from the street by a vestibule, in the floor of which the 
greeting, "Salve," was wrought in beautiful mosaic, we reach 
a large interior court (atrium), which, owing to the absence of 
glass, or exterior openings, was necessary for the admission of 
light and air to the surrounding chambers. A reservoir for 
rain-water (impluvium) occupies the centre of the atrium. 
Passing from the atrium through a large apartment called the 
tablinium, we enter, towards the rear, the strictly domestic 
part of the house, which occupies more than half the space 
within its walls, and is also provided with an interior court. 
The family apartments open into this court, and derive from 
it their light and ventilation. It encloses a garden surrounded 
by a peristyle, and hence takes the name of peristylium. The 
front part of the house, surrounding the atrium, was that in 
which the proprietor transacted his business and held inter- 
course with the external world ; the rear part, surrounding the 
peristylium, was devoted to domestic use exclusively. The 
roof, sloping inward, and open over the interior courts, dis- 
charged the rain which fell upon it into the impluvium. The 
images of the household gods usually occupied a place in the 
vestibule. 

The House of Sallust, so named from an epigraph on its 
outside wall, appears from later discoveries to have been the 
property of A. Cossius Libanus. This house was finished in 
gay colors and embellished with mural paintings, one of which 
— a representation of Actaeon surprising Diana at her bath — is 
singularly well preserved. Other subjects treated are the rape 
of Europa (badly defaced), and Helle in the sea, extending 
her arm to Phryxus. Opposite to the Actceon is a dainty 
chamber, arbitrarily named the venereum, surrounded by po- 
lygonal columns painted red. The impluvium was adorned 
with a bronze group — now in the museum at Palermo — repre- 
senting Hercules contending with a stag. Out of the mouth 
of the stag, in this group, the waters of the fountain gushed. 



312 EUROPEAN DAYS AND V/AYS. 

Some of the bedrooms of this house were floored with African 
marble. 

The House of Meleager takes its name from one of its mural 
decorations, illustrating the story of Meleager and Atalanta. 
Other frescos adorn its walls, representing the judgment of 
Paris, Mercury presenting a purse to Ceres, and a young satyr 
frightening a bacchante with a serpent. Its peristylium — sixty 
by seventy-three feet — is the finest yet found in Pompeii. The 
columns of the peristylium are covered with yellow stucco 
and its chambers are floored with mosaic. A colonnade rises 
on three sides of the dining-room, and one of twenty-four 
columns, red below and white above, supports the portico. A 
garden to the left of the atrium and in front of the portico is 
adorned by a pretty fountain. 

An exquisite bronze statuette of a dancing faun, now in the 
Naples Museum, gave its present title to the most beautiful 
and also one of the largest houses in Pompeii. The discovery 
of this house was first made in 1830, in the presence of a son 
of the poet Goethe. A small pedestal, on which the statuette 
of the faun stood, is still seen in the marble-lined impluvium. 
In the mosaic floor of one of the rooms near by, three doves 
are represented drawing a string of pearls from a casket. 
Mosaics in the dining-room represented Acratus (companion 
of Bacchus) riding on a lion, a cat devouring a partridge, and 
a group of crustaceans and fishes. The salutation "Have" 
(welcome) is wrought with colored marble in the pavement 
of the vestibule before the main entrance. The walls are cov- 
ered with stucco, made of cement, in imitation of colored 
marble. 

The atrium, thirty-five by thirty-eight feet, is finished in the 
Tuscan style, but the twenty-eight columns surrounding the 
peristylium are Ionic. In the rear of the mansion opens a 
garden, one hundred and five by one hundred and fifteen feet, 
enclosed with a peristyle of fifty-six Doric columns. Various 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 313 

articles in gold, silver, bronze, and terra-cotta were found in 
this house, and also some skeletons, one of which was that 
of a woman with a gold ring on her finger engraved with the 
name Cassia. But the most important discovery of all made 
in the House of the Faun was that of the magnificent mosaic 
of Alexander in the battle- of Issus. " This work, which is 
almost the ouly ancient historical composition in existence, 
represents the battle at the moment when Alexander, whose 
helmet has fallen from his head, charges Darius with his cav- 
alry and transfixes the general of the Persians, who has fallen 
from his wounded horse. The chariot of the Persian monarch 
is prepared for retreat, whilst in the foreground a Persian of 
rank, in order to insure the more speedy escape of the king, 
who is absorbed in thought at the sight of his expiring gen- 
eral, offers him his horse." — Baedeker. 

Such are some of the principal mansions of Pompeii and 
the objects found in them. All of the most precious works of 
art which were or could be detached, including many exquisite 
little mural frescos, have been removed and deposited in the 
museum at Naples. The ruins and the museum explain each 
other, and taken together furnish the most complete and vivid 
illustration of ancient life in the world. No books, no pict- 
ures, can tell us so clearly and comprehensively how the people 
of that day and country lived as the remains of this buried 
city. Its dwellings, shops, streets, prisons, temples, theatres, 
and tombs disclose with amazing fulness and accuracy the pur- 
suits, habits, follies, vices, and even the thoughts of its inhabi- 
tants, just as they were living and moving when caught, over- 
whelmed, and forever stilled in the full tide of their existence. 
Well-curbs worn by the sliding rope, stepping-stones hollowed 
by the march of eager multitudes, pavements scarred by the 
stamp of horses' hoofs, advertisements painted on public walls, 
shops and magazines containing the symbols and utensils of 
trade, fountains where the crystal torrent might have hushed 
o " 27 



314 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

but an hour ago its rippling voice, temples whose altars bear 
yet the marks of sacrificial fire, frescos whose color and out- 
line are bright and delicate in spite of calamity and time, 
mosaic floors smooth and shining as if polished only yesterday 
by the dance of dainty feet, — these and a thousand more traces 
of the life of that ancient time help the imagination to repeople 
and restore the ruined city as it was in the day of its pride 
and splendor. 

An inspection of the ruins of Pompeii deepens upon the 
mind its impressions of the sublimity and terror of Vesuvius. 
Physically speaking, the volcano is but a monstrous heap of 
ashes, stones, and scorise, hollow, or partially so, in the centre, 
and streaked with black, solidified lava-currents on the out- 
side. From the crater, whirling volumes of steam and smoke 
constantly issue, each rotary gush representing an interior ex- 
plosion, usually heard only on the summit. In the varying 
states of the atmosphere this monstrous volume of vapor rises 
in columnar form for thousands of feet, and is then borne far 
to seaward, or landward, by the upper currents of the air ; or 
it falls in a dense, sulphurous, shapeless cloud, which envelops 
and conceals the upper part of the mountain. In the latter 
condition of things I made my first ascent ; in the former my 
second. On the first occasion we went up from Portici and 
down to Pompeii ; on the second, the route was reversed. 

From Pompeii the summit may be made — on horseback as 
far as the foot of the cone — in about three hours. The rail- 
way on the Portici side ascends to the outside rim of the 
crater, within which, separated by fissured slabs of lava which, 
a yard below the surface, yet glow with living fire, the main 
chimney or flue of the volcano rises some hundreds of feet 
higher. On the eastern side, below the rim, a lava-stream of 
considerable magnitude had burst forth at the time of my 
visit, and was issuing with a fierce, hissing sound. Its course 
could be traced down the slopes of the mountain for the dis- 



POMPEII AND VESUVIUS. 315 

tance of a mile. Its movement, at first quite rapid, was soon 
checked by the cooling effect of the atmosphere. 

The operations of the crater at this time were extremely in- 
teresting. Near the base of the finial cone a small secondary 
volcanic funnel had recently been formed, which sometimes 
almost silenced with its screeching and blubber the thunderous 
rumbling within the main chimney. Neither of the active 
craters could be approached with safety, but they made no 
objections to being looked at, and so, dismissing my guide, I 
remained about two hours on the summit, watching their 
antics. Sometimes the smaller crater, or safety-valve, as it 
seemed to be, would work itself up to a perfect frenzy of 
hysterical hissing and shrieking, as though all the misery of a 
hundred colicky locomotives were venting itself in one pro- 
longed scream. During such spells the red liquid lava would 
bubble over the rim for a time, like the boiling of an over- 
filled pot ; then suddenly some explosive interior force would 
throw it into the air in a sheaf of beautiful red spray, rising 
and descending in graceful parabolas all around the cone. 
After this performance, the little fellow would subside and 
keep tolerably quiet for ten minutes or so, when it would be 
seized with another paroxysm. 

The larger crater, though also intermittent, was more pro- 
gressive and less fidgety in its action. Its behavior had the 
dignified air of regular business, while the safety-valve 
demeaned itself more as a transient upstart, impatient of at- 
tracting popular attention. The masses of steam and smoke 
issuing from the main orifice were somewhat irregular, both in 
quantity and velocity, their increase in both respects being 
always accompanied by louder and more rapid interior explo- 
sions. At the moments of greatest activity showers of stones 
and lumps of red lava were hurled into the air to heights 
varying from three hundred to one thousand feet, and descend- 
ing, rolled rattling and smoking down the yellow, sulphurous 



316 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

sides of the cone. The spectacle was terrifically sublime at 
times, particularly when the safety-valve chimed in with its 
screaming accompaniment, and flung aloft its jet-d'eau-Yike 
pyrotechnics. The missiles projected from the main crater 
soared at an angle of about fifty degrees, and almost uniformly 
in the same direction, so that they fell on territory of which 
the spectator, looking on from the opposite point of the com- 
pass, was quite willing to accord monopoly of possession, with 
a liberal margin for unadjusted boundary. 

As sunset approached, and the shades of evening were be- 
ginning to add new touches of grandeur to the sublime 
spectacle, I took leave of it reluctantly, and, with Brobdingna- 
gian strides down the volcanic ash-heap, descended in not 
more than seven minutes a space which it had once cost me a 
weary half-hour and the help of two guides to climb. Three 
hours later the red currents of lava could be seen from my 
window in Naples, glittering far away in the darkness, and 
streaking the black sides of the volcano like descending 
streams of molten gold. 



CHAPTER XXL 

FROM MAYENCE TO MADRID. 

From Germany to Paris there are three direct railway 
routes : First, from . Mayence, via Metz ; second, from 
Cologne, via Liege; third, from Strasburg, via Nancy and 
Chalons. For my present purpose I chose the Mayence-Metz 
route, which descends the Rhine as far as Bingen, then turns 
squarely to the left and ascends the valley of the Nahe. The 
scenery in that valley is exceedingly attractive, particularly in 



FROM MAYENCE TO MADRID. 317 

the neighborhood of Creutznach, an old German town and 
famous watering-place, the heights around which bear numer- 
ous remnants of inediseval strong-holds. One of these heights 
is the Rheingrafenstein, a porphyry cliff rising almost perpen- 
dicularly from the Nahe, from which look down the shattered 
walls of the castle, — blown up by Louis XIV., — within which 
dwelt the old-time Rhenish counts. Opposite the Rheingraf- 
enstein towers the crag of Ebernburg, with its pinnacled ruin, 
originally a stronghold of Franz von Sickingen and the robber 
knights ; later the refuge of Ulrich von Hutten and his asso- 
ciates. Other castle-crowned heights, alternating with the 
vine-clad hills which border the valley, are seen as we pass 
along. 

Conspicuous in the chain of quaint old towns and villages 
along this route is Oberstein, a noted seat for the manufacture 
of mock jewelry) much of which is exported to the American 
market. Formerly the agate stones used in this industry were 
found abundantly in the neighborhood of Oberstein, but for 
some years past the diminished home supply of this material 
has had to be made up by importations from Brazil and other 
distant countries. 

At Saarbrucken we enter the mining and iron-manufacturing 
districts of Lorraine, through which, for some miles, the rail- 
way meanders among smoking mills and blazing furnaces. It 
was upon the heights near Saarbrucken that the little Prince 
Imperial of France received his famous " baptism of fire," and 
from here it was that Napoleon III. began the so-called con- 
centration of his army to the rear. Unfortunate prince ! self- 
deluded and self-ruined emperor ! Who is so poor as to envy 
the career of the one or the other ! 

At Metz we find ourselves in the historic and beautiful 
valley of the Moselle. The railway does not enter the fortress, 
and only a few of its outworks can be seen from the passing 
trains. Paguy, a short distance beyond Metz, is the boundary 

27* 



318 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

station, where all travellers must alight and put their baggage 
under the inspection of the customs officials. 

" Quel pays f" demanded a French officer in uniform, with 
a note-book in his hand. 

" The United States of America," was my reply, and it was 
so recorded. 

" Have you any tobacco ?" inquired another official, as he 
rummaged my portmanteau. 

" None whatever." 

Upon which response I was permitted to gather up my 
effects and go. 

A short distance from Pagny, the railway passes close by 
the imposing ruins of a Roman aqueduct, constructed by 
Drusus. This structure, originally sixty feet high and twelve 
hundred and twenty yards long, conducted water from the 
hills to Divodurum, the ancient Metz. Seven of its grand 
arches rise near the railway, and at another place in the 
vicinity eleven more still stand in firm condition. 

We have now entered one of the most fruitful and beau- 
tiful regions of France, — a fair, smiling land, exhibiting 
everywhere that painstaking cultivation of the soil, and that 
industrious, frugal thrift so characteristic of the French. Par- 
allel with the railway, and often intersecting it, branches and 
trunk-lines of the great canal system are observed, which 
France esteems as the most beneficial part of her public works. 
Immense sums are spent in the extension and improvement of 
these canals, and with good reason, for as a means of cheap 
interior transportation they are unequalled. 

Having left Mayence in the morning, we find ourselves, at 
10 p.m., nearing Paris. As the great city is approached by 
railway in the evening, its numberless lights are seen twinkling 
from afar, and, with commingled glare, waving to the traveller 
a flamboyant greeting. Soon we are among the brilliantly- 
lighted streets and boulevards, swept by almost ceaseless cur- 



FROM MAYENCE t TO MADRID. 319 

rents of gay and eager life, and we realize at once why it is 
that Paris is the siren which bewitches the fancy and incites 
the ambition of all Frenchmen. 

The beautiful city was at its best those bright May days. 
The weather was perfect, and every element of metropolitan 
activity was in full play. It was a luxury to stroll about in 
the sunshine and mingle with the cheerful current of active, 
ardent, diversified humanity. Let me quote a few lines from 
my diary : 

" Last evening we had a cloudless sunset, and it was superb. 
Looking up the Champs £lys6es, I saw the noble Arc de 
Triomphe standing in a perfect flood of golden light bursting 
through its magnificent portal. I walked up to. the Arc, that 
splendid memento of Napoleon's victories, to see the sun slide 
down behind the bastioned summits of Mont Valerien, and 
was rewarded by an inspiring view far out the great avenues 
of Neuilly and Bois de Boulogne, flooded and dimmed with 
mellow sunset splendors. What Parisian standing there at 
such a time could help feeling proud of France and her 
metropolis ! American as I was, I could not escape the 
patriotic inspiration of her great national memorial so fitly and 
sublimely set. 

" Another scene almost equally inspiring was that witnessed 
from the balcony of the opera-house in the full tide of even- 
ing. The world does not offer a more animated picture of 
throbbing, thronging metropolitan life than that. The heart 
of Paris beats there, perhaps the heart of France also, for 
from thence the tides of its exuberant energies seem to ema- 
nate." 

The railway journey from Paris to Bordeaux may be made 
in fifteen hours. The traveller has the choice of two routes, 
the preferable one being that via Orleans, Tours, and Poitiers. 
After quitting Paris, the railway pursues for a time the upper 
valley of the Seine, and brings us in a couple of hours to 



320 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Orleans, whose cathedral, rising high above its clustered gables, 
looks far over the surrounding plain. The walls froni before 
which the Maid of Orleans, with her followers, drove the 
besieging English, are entirely gone, and, excepting her 
equestrian statue erected in the Place Martroy, the town has 
few visible reminders of its glorious heroine. 

From Orleans the railway follows the course of the Loire 
to Blois and Arnboise, each possessing a castle of mediaeval 
renown, and to Tours, with its celebrated renaissance cathe- 
dral. At Tours we quit the valley of the Loire and pass over 
to that of the Indre, on the margin of which, observable from 
the railway, rise the renaissance spires and gables of the 
Chateau de la Roche. The region hereabouts has been called 
the garden of France, — a title which the luxuriance and variety 
of its vegetation go far to justify. Standing upon an eminence 
in the midst of this fertile district, the city of Poitiers, sur- 
rounded by turreted walls, overlooks the garden-like valley 
at the confluence of the Clain and the Boivre. Two cathe- 
drals lift their spires upon its rocky promontory, that of St. 
Pierre, with rare glass-painting of the thirteenth century, and 
that of Notre-Dame-la-Grande, of the twelfth century, which 
latter is one of the most interesting specimens of the Roman- 
esque style in Western France. Poitiers was the ancient 
Lemonum. Near it the Visigoths were beaten by Clovis in 
the sixth century, and upon the great plain lying between it 
and Tours, Abderrahman and his Saracens were defeated two 
hundred years later by Charles Martel. A few miles from the 
city was also fought the battle of Poitiers, in which King 
John the Good, with an army at least fifty thousand strong, 
was overcome by eight thousand English and Gascons under 

Edward the Black Prince. 

■ 

The sun was just setting as we neared Angouleme, a fine 
old town of ancient origin, admirably situated upon a sym- 
metrically-rounded hill rising two hundred feet above the 



FROM MATENCE TO MADRID. 321 

meandering; current of the Charente. Here again we find a 
noble Romanesque cathedral of the twelfth century. The city 
also contains a Benedictine abbey of the time of Charlemagne, 
and a ruined castle, within whose walls Marguerite of Navarre 
was born. 

It was some time after dark when our train drew up on the 
north bank of the Garonne, and we crossed by a noble stone 
bridge of seventeen arches — Pont de la Bastide — into Bor- 
deaux. This city had long been to me the. goal of many 
pleasing anticipations. Although situated fifty-eight miles 
inland, it has ample communication with the ocean by the 
broad, deep channel of the Garonne, which makes it, next to 
Havre and Marseilles, the most important seaport in France. 
Its origin is ancient. First a Celtic port, it became afterwards 
a Roman station, and was made chief city of Aquitaine by the 
Emperor Hadrian. In the fifth century it was subdued by the 
Goths, in the sixth by the Franks, and in the eighth by the 
Spanish Arabs. Made a dukedom by Charlemagne, it fell to 
the inheritance of Eleonore, heiress of the last of the Gascon 
dukes and subsequently wife of Henry II. of England, of 
w r hose realm, through his marriage with her, it became a part. 
Bordeaux remained an English city for three centuries, and 
during that period acquired many English characteristics. 
Edward the Black Prince made it his residence, and held there 
a brilliant court. In the fifteenth century it was lost to the 
English, together with their other possessions in France. 
Montaigne and Montesquieu were both natives of Bordeaux, 
and the former was for many years its mayor. A colossal 
statue of each of these famous men adorns the great central 
public square of the city, known as the Place des Quinconces. 

Protestantism early gained a footing in Bordeaux, and on 
the bloody eve of St. Bartholomew twenty-five hundred 
Bordelais gave up their lives at the shrine of the new faith. 
During the Revolution the city was strongly Girondist, and 



322 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

thereby drew upon itself the wrath of the Jacobins, by whose 
decree, on a certain occasion, three hundred men and women 
were put to death. Over the place of execution was written 
the barbarous motto, " Blood is the milk of the children of 
liberty." Here it was, too, in this city of Bordeaux, that 
Napoleon III., referring to the commercial interests of France 
and their need of public tranquillity, spoke the memorable 
words, " L 'empire c'est la paix." These words, afterwards so 
disastrously falsified by their author, were transfixed in letters 
of marble on the walls of the Public Exchange. 

Outside of France Bordeaux is better known, popularly 
speaking, by its wines than by its history. Within its vicinage, 
between the Garonne and the sea, lies the most celebrated 
grape-growing district in the world. This is the so-called 
Medoc region, containing the renowned Chateau Margeaux, 
Chateau Lafitte, St. Estephe, St. Julien, and Macon vine- 
yards. It is questionable whether any other territory of equal 
size, even among the gold- and diamond-fields, has produced 
so much wealth as this. The Bordeaux wines have probably 
enriched France more than any other single interest. There 
are striking differences, however, between Bordeaux on the 
banks of the Garonne, and Bordeaux on the banks of the 
Rhine, the Hudson, or the Mississippi. The rule of the Gas- 
con restaurants is vin d discretion, and their guests have the 
same freedom with the claret carafe that Americans have with 
the water-pitcher. There is a saying in Spain that the poorest 
sherry is drunk at the great sherry mart, Jerez, but the vin 
ordinaire, which costs nothing at Bordeaux, is better than 
much of the vin " extraordinaire" for which we pay one dollar 
and a half to two dollars a bottle. 

The great wine-vaults of Bordeaux are interesting in the 
extreme. Through the courtesy of an acquaintance I was 
afforded the opportunity to explore one of them, — that of a 
firm well known in the United States. The vaults of this 



FROM MATENCE TO MADRID. 323 

establishment are two stories deep, one series below the other. 
Most of the wines in store are in bottles, placed on iron racks 
and laid upon their sides, so as to prevent the admission of air 
through the corkage. Many of the racks are overspread with 
a snow-white fungus, which grows in such places in various 
fantastic forms, without any apparent moisture to nourish it. 
In some of the racks the bottles had lain ten, twenty, and even 
thirty years untouched. 

As a conclusion to my sight-seeing in Bordeaux > I climbed 
the tower of the St. Michael Cathedral, and obtained a far-, 
reaching, most interesting view over the city and the country 
around it. Southward were displayed the western spurs of 
the Pyrenees, sloping down to the ocean ; westward lay the 
great sandy moor known as the Landes; northward was the 
Medoc wine district, skirted by the broad, sail-studded surface 
of the Garonne ; eastward rose a series of verdurous hills, 
crowned with chateaux, orchards, and vineyards ; and directly 
below were the great wharves, crowded with shipping and 
piled with merchandise from all parts of the world. 

Excepting the view, just described, to be obtained from its 
tower, the St. Michael Cathedral offers no especial attraction 
to the stranger, but it is the favorite church of the peasantry, 
and its early mass on Sunday is attended by large numbers 
from that class of the population. On such occasions the 
maids and workwomen wear a peculiar head-dress of brightly- 
colored stuff, with which they cunningly set off to best ad- 
vantage their sparkling black eyes, brunette complexions, and 
luxuriant hair. 

Forty miles from Bordeaux I halted to enjoy a quiet Sun- 
day at Arcachon, a Bordelais sea-side resort on the Biscayan 
coast. The weather was exquisite, and from my window in 
the hotel I looked out over the bright bay, wrinkled by a gen- 
tle breeze and tinted with the azure of an unclouded sky. 
More enjoyable still was an afternoon stroll among the villas, 



324 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

gardens, and evergreen groves which cover the dunes blown 
up by centuries of fretful wind, and along the far-extending 
beach, where the wavelets came softly lisping over the sand. 

Next day, for twelve hours, I journeyed southward by rail, 
through the monotonous Landes, the most sterile region in 
France. The inhabitants of this district, few and scantily 
civilized, lead a nomadic life, on the patriarchal principle. 
The water which falls from the clouds, or exudes from springs, 
being hemmed in by the dunes and held from absorption by 
an impervious stratum of clay, the greater part of the country 
has been converted into swamps and bogs. Over this quaggy 
surface the shepherds and turpentine boilers, of whom the male 
population mainly consists, travel on long stilts, in the use of 
which they are wonderfully expert, and can make the speed of 
a horse. When the stilt-walker wishes to rest himself, he plants 
a third stake firmly in the ground so as to form a tripod, upon 
which he sits for hours watching his herd, and additionally 
improving his time by knitting. The cultivation of the cork- 
tree has been successfully introduced in the southern part of 
the Landes, but the trees must be permitted to grow fifty years 
before their bark can be used, and it may then be removed 
only once in eight or ten years. 

The construction of the railway through the Landes was a 
matter of much difficulty. The workmen dwelt in tents which 
were pitched upon the track as it progressed, and their food 
had to be brought forward from Bordeaux. When the Moors 
were obliged to leave Spain, they solicited from the King of 
France the privilege of redeeming and inhabiting this region, 
but were refused. 

Reaching Bayonne at sunset, we journeyed between sun- 
down and dark behind a chipper little narrow-gauge loco- 
motive over the hills to Biarritz. It was night when we 
arrived there, and not long after we reached the Hotel 
d'Angleterre, I dropped to sleep listening to the beat and 



FROM MAYENCE TO MADRID. 325 

swash of invisible waves. Next morning I was awakened by 
the same throbbing music of the sea, and, looking out, saw 
the bright bay all a-sparkle with wavelets blown up by the 
fragrant breath of an unclouded May morning. From my win- 
dow the indented line of the coast could be seen extending far 
away to the northward, while in the foreground lay the broad, 
sandy beach known as the Cote des Fours, behind which rose 
a range of hills crowned with chateaux. The beach has a 
gentle inclination, and as the tide came in, long, silvery lines 
of surf chased each other in slow, measured movement up and 
down the sloping strand. The picture was a most fascinating, 
tranquillizing one,— a picture to rhapsodize and dream over 
through all the livelong hours. But there was one sad object 
in it, — sad in its associations, at least, — and that was the Villa 
Eugenie, once the holiday home of the Empress of France. 
The villa was neglected and weather-stained, and the dethroned 
empress, who once irradiated it with her truly imperial beauty, 
was an exile from home and country. 

In respect to its natural advantages, Biarritz has been called 
the most attractive sea-side resort in Europe. It is certainly 
the most attractive one in France. Its three different bays, 
with a bottom and gently-sloping beach of fine, elastic sand, 
and a surf, here roaring and strong, and there gentle, offer 
conveniences for sea-bathing adapted to every taste. The ele- 
vated situation of the town commands a superb view along the 
coast from the mouth of the Garonne to the peaks of the 
Spanish Sierras, the whole variegated and enlivened by the 
perpetual rush of the sea, sometimes leaping up against per- 
pendicular walls of rock, sometimes foaming and chafing amid 
the breakers, and sometimes gently swaying back and forth 
upon a wide, slanting beach. 

Opposite the lower part of the town the sea is open, and the 
waves come rolling in unbroken, sometimes twenty-five or 
thirty feet high. Here, also, the bottom and beach are laid 

28 



326 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

with soft, fine sand. The coast at this point is known as the 
Cote des Basques, for the reason that here, on a certain day in 
August, the Basque peasants, assembled by hundreds from all 
the country round, march hand in hand, with shouts, drum- 
beat, and song, into the heavily-rolling waves. On such occa- 
sions the whole party is often momentarily submerged, but men 
and maidens keep their places in the ranks, and, when the 
surf rolls back again, resume with redoubled zest their songs 
and laughter. 

My original intention was, upon quitting Biarritz, to cross 
the Pyrenees on foot, and make for Saragossa, but the snow yet 
lay upon the mountains so deep as to render that scheme im- 
practicable. I therefore resumed the journey by rail, the more 
reluctantly because the only comfortable train from Bayonne 
to Madrid passes over the most interesting portions of the 
route by night. This train crosses the Bidassoa — forming the 
boundary between France and Spain — about two o'clock in 
the afternoon. The last French station is Hendaye, the first 
Spanish one Irun. In the middle of the Bidassoa, near the 
point where the railway crosses it, lies the so-called Pheasant's 
Island, upon and near which war and diplomacy have fre- 
quently changed the current of human affairs. It was upon 
this little patch of neutral ground that Louis XI. of France 
personally negotiated with the Spanish king the marriage of 
the Duke of Guienne; that King Francis, when a captive of 
Charles V., was exchanged for his two sons ; and that Cardi- 
nal Mazarin concluded the treaty of Pyrenees, in pursuance 
of which Louis XIV. of France was married to the Spanish 
Infanta. Down the river from Pheasant's Island rise the 
ruined ramparts of the old Spanish town of Fuenterrabia, from 
whose walls the Prince of Concle was repulsed, and near which 
Wellington crossed and marched into France. The gorge of 
Roncesvalles, where Knight Roland suffered his " dolorous 
rout," is forty miles distant. 



FROM MA FENCE TO MADRID. 327 

No sooner have we halted at Iran than we realize that we 
have changed countries, changed languages, and must also 
change trains. Hitherto we have been paying in francs ; now 
we must pay in pesetas. The standard of time is also changed, 
and we must set our watches to conform to the standard at 
Madrid. The customs officers inspect our baggage and ply 
us with the usual questions about the possession of tobacco. 
Retiring from the presence of these uniformed and peremptory 
officials, we timidly seek admission to the passenger coup&s, 
already crowded, and immediately encounter the Spanish 
language in all the vigor, melody, and mystery of its provin- 
cial vernacular. 

The coupe in which, after much persistence, I obtained a 
place, was filled at first with local passengers, but after we had 
gotten under way they dropped off one by one, to my great 
relief, at the way-side stations, until finally I had the whole 
compartment to myself. For some hours we coursed through 
a hilly and tolerably fertile country, with views of the Pyrenees 
inland, and occasional glimpses of the sea to the right. The 
dwellings, built of stone or some grouty material, were gen- 
erally low and unattractive, the villages much resembling those 
of Southern France. In nearly every important town passed, 
a huge wooden amphitheatre built and used for bull-fighting 
stood forth as the most conspicuous object. More people were 
seen working in the fields than in France, and, as evening ap- 
proached, numerous squads of homeward-going peasants moved 
upon the highways, accompanied by lumbering ox-carts with 
great spokeless wooden wheels. So like unto dreams of my 
boyhood were some of these scenes, that I could have believed 
them to be phantoms of the mind but for the noise and jostle 
of the train, keeping my senses awake to the facts of actual 
experience. This, then, was Spain, really Spain, the land about 
which I had so much read and fancied ; the land of the Goth, 
Moor, and Castilian ; of Ferdinand and Isabella ; of Charles 



328 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

V. and Philip II. ; of Columbus and De Soto ; of Calderon and 
Cervantes ; of Murillo and Velasquez ; and last, and least, of 
Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine " pickle-vender of Seville/' 
who gave his name to our continent. 

At Miranda del Ebro we obtained, at trifling cost, an ex- 
cellent supper, after which I lay down upon one of the divans 
of the coupe, and was conscious of nothing more during the 
night except some dreamful regrets upon hearing the trainmen 
sing out, in their peculiar Spanish drawl, the names of Burgos 
and Valladolid. Early dawn disclosed a bleak mountain land- 
scape, for we were mounting the heathy slopes of the Gua- 
darrama, from the snow-covered summits of which the wind 
blew piercing cold. About sunrise the train halted, to let the 
passengers take breakfast, at Avila, a venerable town sur- 
rounded by weather-stained walls and battlemented towers of 
the mediaeval period. Avila, with its little vicinage of arable 
land, lies like an oasis amid a barren waste of treeless, snow- 
tipped mountains and boulder-strewn hills. The fascinations 
of the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps are totally wanting to the 
Guadarrama; its bare and bleak sublimity is harsh and re- 
pellent, saddening rather than inspiring. 

An hour or two beyond Avila the railway descends the 
southern slope of the range, and a vast, mountain-girdled 
region is disclosed, in the midst of which, far below, lies the 
distant plain of Madrid. The scenery, though imposing by 
its immensity, is still cheerless and unfriendly, in marked con- 
trast with that which is viewed from the sunny southern slopes 
of the Alps, looking down upon the luxuriant plains of Lom- 
bardy and Piedmont. At nine o'clock the train halts for a 
few minutes at the station for the Escorial, and at half-past 
ten arrives at Madrid. 

The capital, although it is the most populous, is the most 
upstart city in Spain. It is therefore, in some respects, much 
less representative than other cities of the traditional Castilian 



FROM MAYENCE TO MADRID. 329 

life. Situated at an elevation of nearly twenty-five hundred 
feet above sea-level, its horizon, northward and eastward, is 
skirted by the Guadarrama range, which, when I saw it, was 
covered with snow. Much has been said as to the alleged 
folly of establishing the capital in such a region, but Charles 
V., who chose the site, had his reasons for the choice. For 
my own part, I am inclined to ratify it, for my days in Madrid 
were all cloudless and crystalline. The rarefied atmosphere 
was cool enough in May to make an overcoat desirable, and 
the skies were spread with fathomless azure, much resembling 
that of a Colorado day in spring-time. Charles V. was gouty, 
it is said, and with good reason loved the bright skies and 
bracing atmosphere of his capital. 

Madrid, despite all the unfriendly comment of which it has 
been the subject, is a very beautiful city. Its parks, prome- 
nades, public buildings, and principal streets are all on a mag- 
nificent scale. But in nothing does it excel so much as in its 
great museum of painting, which has sometimes been called the 
finest collection of modern art in the world. I had seen 
Murillo in the Louvre, at Dresden, and at Munich, but it is 
necessary to see him also at Madrid and Seville to form an 
entirely adequate conception of his genius. Velasquez is not 
only great in this museum ; he is gigantic. The gallery 
contains sixty-two of his pictures, among which his Philip 
IV. entering Lerida and Duke Olivarez commanding in Battle 
have been declared by some writers on art to be the finest 
equestrian paintings extant. To me, and perhaps to most 
people, a more pleasing specimen of his work of this character 
is a less pretentious picture, representing the boy-prince 
Balthazar riding a pony, which seems to be verily springing out 
of the frame. Among the numerous portraits by Velasquez 
are his incomparable character-pieces known as Philip IV.'s 
dwarfs. The museum contains several Raphaels, the most 
celebrated of which is that known as The Pearl, so called 

28* 



330 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

because Philip IV., when he first saw it, exclaimed, " This is 
the pearl of all my pictures." It represents the infant Saviour 
and St. John, and although it has suffered much from restora- 
tions, gives convincing evidence that it could have come from 
no other hand than Raphael's. 

Titian, as might be expected from his long residence at 
the court of Charles V., is magnificently represented in 
the Madrid collection. In the Salon Isabel his splendid 
coloring flames like the golden gleams of a Venetian 
sunset. His portrait of Charles V. on horseback disputes 
with the equestrian paintings of Velasquez the honor of 
being the very first of its kind. Some of the choicest Van- 
dykes extant are in the Salon Isabel, while Rubens's blazing 
color illuminates nearly every chamber in the museum. One 
of the most interesting portraits in the gallery is that of Queen 
Mary, painted pending her marriage with Philip II. It was 
executed by Antonio Moro, who was sent to England ex- 
pressly for that purpose by Charles V. The museum contains 
several of Claude Lorraine's landscapes, but most of them 
have suffered sadly from the effects of time and the brush of 
the restorer. The Dutch and Flemish schools are of course 
largely represented, and the pictures by Spanish artists are 
very numerous, but at the boundary which separates Murillo, 
Velasquez, and Ribera from the rest of the Spanish school its 
interest for the most part ceases. 

Tourists who go to Madrid feel it to be a duty to go also to 
the Escorial. The task is a tiresome one, and consumes an 
entire day. Those who undertake it leave Madrid by a 
wretchedly-slow morning train, and return by the same sort of 
conveyance in the evening. The compensation for the tedium, 
dust, fatigue, and other discomforts of the trip is the privilege 
of exploring the dismal monastery wherein Philip II. glided 
about with his fellow-monks; where his austere and merciless 
career came to a fitting close ; and where most of the Spanish 



FROM MAYENCE TO MADRID. 331 

kings, queens, and emperors are entombed. Readers of his- 
tory scarcely need any description of this monstrous pile, dismal 
alike in its nondescript architecture and in its savage surround- 
ings. It is situated far up among the rocky spurs of the 
Guadarrama, where winter howls and rages with such fury 
that no human being can endure it with any comfort, and 
where the kindlier seasons come timidly and tarry briefly. 

Strangers are permitted to wander at will through the church 
and the monastical corridors, and are shown by a guide 
through the numerous chambers of the palace. A guide also 
conducts the visitor down into the crypt of the Pantheon, 
where rest in sublime seclusion the coffined remains of the 
Spanish monarchs. The church, or chapel, as it is called, is 
the finest part of the Escorial. Here Philip II. punctually at- 
tended the daily services, and the seat is pointed out wherein he 
sat when an attendant whispered to him, and he received with- 
out apparent emotion or interruption in his devotions, the news 
of the Lepanto victory. Excepting its chapel, the Escorial is 
nothing special in an architectural sense. The rooms of the 
palace were no doubt considered very grand in their day, but 
are quite insignificant in comparison with the present royal 
apartments at Madrid. Most of them are small, low, and 
badly ventilated and lighted, the most famous, though small- 
est of all, being finished in costly inlaid wood and filigree work 
in gold and silver. The walls are generally lined with rather 
monotonous tapestries after designs by Teniers and Goya. « 

The most interesting of all the apartments are those in which 
Philip II. lived and died. It is difficult to avoid the conclu- 
sion, after seeing those miserable chambers and hearing all 
the tales told about them, that their royal occupant was crazy. 
Nobody could live in such a place and in such a manner as 
Philip did and be a cheerful, generous ruler of men. The 
furniture which he used has been carefully preserved just as 
he left it, and is miserably plain and mean. The rooms which 



332 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

he personally occupied are small arid, with one exception, 
dark. That in which he died is but a cell, barely large enough 
for a bed, and has no aperture for light excepting a door with 
glass panels, looking into the gloomy grandeur of the chapel. 
In this sombre cell, as in the depths of a cavern, the royal 
monk listened to the masses celebrated at the grand altar. 
Here it was that he governed Europe, and here he expired, at 
last, amid terrific tortures of body and mind. For fifty-three 
days, it is said, he lay in unmentionable filth, consumed, like 
Herod, by self-engendered vermin. 

Before quitting the Escorial for Madrid, having nothing 
else to do, I climbed the mountain behind the village. The 
skies were clear, and the atmosphere warm but stirred by a 
pleasant breeze which fanned the heathy slopes. Seated upon 
the fragments of a ruined wall near the summit, I found 
myself in a good position for reverie. Directly below me rose 
the gray walls and lofty dome of the palace monastery, beyond 
which, stretching southward, lay the plain of Madrid. The 
whole country looked bleak and sterile. It was an ironical 
destiny, I thought, which led the remorseless monarchs whose 
mortal remains lie in the Pantheon of the Escorial to choose 
such a region and such a spot for their last resting-place. The 
stony desert which surrounds them in death is in keeping 
with their hard, unrelenting natures in life ; and Spain, which 
shows plainly in her silent, melancholy decay the results of 
their misrule, could have given them no more fitting tomb. 

My sojourn in Madrid happened to fall in the midst of a 
season of national festivities. One of the principal events in 
the catalogue of amusements was a great bull-fight, in which 
were to figure some of the most famous matadores in Spain. 
" By all means go and see it," said an acquaintance to me, 
" for you will never be able to realize how utterly brutal and 
horrible a bull-fight is until you have witnessed it." Yet I 
did not go. Our civil war had satiated my appetite, if I ever 



FROM MAYENCE TO MADRID. 333 

had any, for combative and cruel amusements. But another 
opportunity was presented, which I did not miss, for observing 
some of the interesting phases of Spanish life. I attended the 
races. 

We went early, and secured a position for our carriage 
directly opposite to the royal pavilion. The delightful weather 
and other attractions brought out an enormous crowd, in which 
the beauty and nobility of all Spain were represented, from 
the beach of San Sebastian to the orange-groves of Valencia. 
As the time approached for the races to begin, a splendid car- 
riage, drawn by six white horses, drew up at the pavilion, and 
King Alfonso and his queen appeared upon the platform. 
They were attended by ministers of state, ambassadors, noble- 
men, distinguished military officers, and many ladies of the 
court. The king looked more like a young coxcomb than the 
ruler of a great nation, though it must be confessed that he 
was ruling then, and ruled afterwards, up to the time of his 
death, with wisdom above his years. Queen Christina did not 
impress me as handsome, so much as graceful and womanly. 

After the races, which, by the way, were a wretched failure 
so far as the racing was concerned, everybody took a drive in 
the Prado. Down one side of the magnificent thoroughfare 
and up the other, throughout its entire extent, two and a half 
miles, a continuous line of carriages passed and repassed, filled 
with the elite of Spain. Between the moving lines space was 
left, by usual courtesy, for the royal equipage. The city, the 
weather, the promenaders, and the promenade with its stately 
trees and splendid fountains, all were at their best. The 
glittering uniforms of ambassadors, attaches, and military offi- 
cers were mingled with the gayly-colored toilets of dark-eyed, 
jewelled seiloras, while over all the declining sun of May cast 
floods of golden evening light. The entire scene was a brilliant 
and intensely-interesting one, unique and never to be for- 
gotten. 



334 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

TOLEDO AND CORDOVA. 

The intellectual delights of travel in Spain are many, but. 
its comforts are few. The best hotels, albeit reasonable in 
their charges, are scant and ordinary in their accommodations, 
while those of less pretensions are scarcely endurable. The 
railways make slow time, bad connections, and long detours. 
" They suit us," say the Spaniards, in their blissful uncon- 
sciousness of anything better, and it must be confessed that 
they are something of an improvement over the primitive 
modes of Spanish travel. 

To an Americau, Spain is a country of especial interest. 
The discovery, exploration, and early settlement of our conti- 
nent all lead our thoughts to her. Spaniards dispute with 
other Europeans the honors of first discovery of our Atlantic 
shores, and were first of Celts to look upon our great central 
river, or to reach our western boundary, the broad Pacific. 
The West Indies, Mexico, and Central and South America — all 
neighbors with whom our relations will become closer and closer 
as time rolls on — are largely or predominantly Spanish. Cali- 
fornia, Florida, Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico were all first 
explored and settled by Spaniards, New Mexico nearly a cen- 
tury before the English landed on the coast of New England. 
No country ever had such colonial opportunities, or made such 
colonial conquests in the western hemisphere, as Spain. From 
the dawn of American civilization to the present the current 
of Spanish history is intermingled with, or closely related to, 
that of our own destiny. Reciprocally, the annals of America 
run for centuries through Spanish archives, and the best his- 




SENECA. 
Portrait Bust, Uffizi Gallery, Florence. 



TOLEDO AND CORDOVA. 335 

tories of Spain, of her lost conquest, the Netherlands, and of 
her retained one, Granada, have been written by Americans. 

No city of Spain is more truly typical of her history and 
of the social and intellectual life of her people, and none can 
therefore be more interesting, in these respects, to an American 
than Toledo. What Nuremberg is to Germany is this vener- 
able city, or rather citadel, to Spain, except that it looks, and 
really is, much older than the quaint old German fortress. 
Perched aloft on great ledges of gneiss and granite, which 
have been tilted upon their edges and deeply cut by the gnaw- 
ing current of the Tagus, Toledo lifts its gray walls and 
towers high above the bare, sun-baked, foot-beaten hills around 
it. The city and its surroundings have alike a worn and 
ancient look, an air of storm-stained, threadbare antiquity, 
surviving the flight of many ages and the fret of many gen- 
erations. Ascending from the railway-station towards the 
town, we pass under a portcullis upon the narrow stone bridge, 
five centuries old, which spans the chasm of the " wild and 
melancholy Tagus," the " lonely, unused river," which " flows 
away solitary and unseen, its waters without boats, its shores 
without life." Beyond the bridge we mount again, passing 
under the shadow of the huge walls, until we reach and enter 
the principal gate — over which another portcullis hangs — and 
alight amid a bewildering net-work of narrow lanes, under 
the towering walls of the great citadel. 

Here we are in the midst of a city of less than twenty thou- 
sand inhabitants, which once contained more than ten times 
that many dwellers within its precincts. Here the Jews found 
refuge who fled from Nebuchadnezzar ; here the Romans con- 
quered under Marius Fulvius ; here the Goths established the 
seat of their monarchy ; here the Moors dominated for three 
hundred and fifty years; and here the Alonzos Set up an im- 
perial Spanish throne. Jewish, Gothic, Roman, Moorish, in 
succession, Toledo became at length thoroughly Spanish and a 



336 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

renowned source of the pure Castilian dialect. To speak 
Spanish en propria Toledano is the equivalent of speaking 
German according to the strictest Hanoverian standard. But 
languid now are the scenes among which once surged such 
great activities, the little life that remains in them but casting 
into stronger relief the life that was, but is no longer. The 
streets of the old town, made purposely crooked for defensive 
reasons, wind and cross each other in all directions, and are 
seldom passable for carriages. The dwellings, built of stone 
and whitewashed, are severely plain outside, but many of 
them are arranged with a charming interior court, in the 
Moorish style, wherein tropical plants are cultivated, and over 
which awnings are drawn in summer. Of the Moorish 
architecture, seen here mainly in decayed remnants, the old 
church of Cristo de la Luz, originally a mosque, is the com- 
pletest and best-preserved specimen. The Gothic style is more 
conspicuous than the Moorish, and manifests itself here in its 
most exquisite forms. The old Franciscan convent known as 
San Juan de los Reyes, although it was gutted and partially 
burned by the French, is still a rare gem of Gothic art. The 
best-preserved portion of this once splendid but now ruined 
establishment is its chapel, the embellishment of which is rich 
in stone tracery and leaf- work of poetic delicacy and grace, and 
in the surpassing beauty of its exquisitely-pointed arches and 
its flamboyant windows. This admirable chamber was used 
by the French invaders as a stable. 

The cathedral is a magnificent example of the pure thir- 
teenth-century Gothic. Not surpassed by any of the great 
French cathedrals in the excellence of its style, it excels them 
all in the richness and variety of its furniture and artistic em- 
bellishments. Like many other great churches of Spain, it is 
built on the site of a Moorish mosque. In 1808 it was sacked 
by the French under La Houssaye, who carried off its silver 
plate to the amount of two thousand three hundred pounds. 



TOLEDO AND CORDOVA. 337 

Its painted windows, executed four or five centuries ago, are 
of the finest materials and workmanship, and, when illuminated 
with the splendors of the setting sun, glow with the color of 
rubies and emeralds. The interior consists of five naves, sup- 
ported by eighty-four majestic piers, with lofty arches of sub- 
limest Gothic form and symmetry. The great choir, which is 
so prodigally ornate as to form within itself a museum of rich 
carving, sculpture, and painted decoration, takes its place at the 
centre of the church, in the middle nave, which is widest and 
highest. The principal chapel is also placed in the central 
nave, adjoining the transept. This chapel contains the tomb 
of Alonzo VII., and that of Cardinal Mendoza, the great 
prelate, who shared, as Tertius Rex, the sovereignty of Ferdi- 
nand and Isabella. Its superb Gothic retablo is reached by a 
flight of steps in jasper and colored stone, with elaborate carv- 
ings dating from the year 1500, illustrative of the lives of 
Christ and the Virgin. Twenty-seven other chapels range 
along the walls around the outside nave, all abounding in 
objects and decorations of deep religious, historical, and artistic 
interest. Near the central aisle a pyramid of gilded open 
Gothic has been erected to designate the spot on which the 
Virgin Mary descended from heaven, in person, to meet San 
Ildefonso. Incased in red marble, and suitably inscribed in 
Latin, the very slab on which the Virgin's feet alighted ap- 
peals to our reverential wonder. Devout visitors have visibly 
worn away the stone with pious kisses. The Virgin is further 
honored in this church by an ancient effigy of her person, 
carved in black wood, and seated on a silver throne beneath a 
gilded silver canopy. The wardrobe of this image includes a 
mantle embroidered with pearls, precious stones, and threads 
of gold. Many of her jewels were carried off by the French, 
and in 1 868 her superb crown and bracelets, of sixteenth-cen- 
tury workmanship, were stolen. The sacristy, entered by a 
stately portal finished in colored marble, is a museum of relics, 
p w 29 



338 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

gems, church plate, and other precious articles. The library, 
occupying a noble apartment, contains many volumes and 
manuscripts of great antiquity and value. 

From Toledo to Cordova, if we betake ourselves to the 
railway, we must once more travel by night. The down trains 
from Madrid are intercepted at Castillejos Junction, sixteen 
miles from Toledo. Leaving Castillejos at ten o'clock in the 
evening, we arrive at Cordova just twelve hours- later. This 
train passes through the fine scenery of the Sierra Morena 
mountains about sunrise. Being the solitary occupant of the 
coup£, and having fallen asleep soon after we quitted Castillejos, 
I was conscious of nothing further until awakened by the 
curiously-intoned cry of the trainmen, — "Alcazar ! veinte min- 
utos !" The station so announced was that of Alcazar de San 
Juan, from whence the line branches to Alicante and Valencia. 
Sixteen miles farther south, on the Cordova stem, we pass the vil- 
lage of Argamasilla, where Cervantes wrote his " Don Quixote," 
while in prison. Beyond Argamasilla we cross the dry, tim- 
berless plains of La Mancha, which, exposed to intense heat 
in summer and piercing winds in winter, derive their sole 
interest from the geuius of Cervantes. At Manzanares we 
enter a vineyard district, which extends as far as Valdepenas, 
famous for its wine, — a rich, fruity claret of the same name, 
preserved in pig-skins and goat-skins such as Don Quixote 
attacked. At Venta de Cardenas, in the province of Jaen, 
just south of the La Mancha boundary, we enter the hilly 
region bordering the Sierra, where the scenes of some of the 
most striking adventures of the famous Knight of the Sor- 
rowful Figure are laid. These fancias of Cervantes are re- 
garded by the simple peasants of the neighborhood as historical 
verities. Ascending the Sierra Morena from this district, the 
railway finds passage across the range by a magnificent defile, 
darts through numerous tunnels, and descends to Vilches, near 
which, in 1212, the King of Morocco, at the head of the 



TOLEDO AND CORDOVA. 339 

Andalusian Moors and their allies, was defeated by Alonzo 
VIII. Near the important mining city of Linares, some miles 
farther south, a great battle was fought between Scipio and 
Hannibal. Beyond Linares we cross to the left bank of the 
Guadalquiver, whose course, fringed with palms, aloes, and 
orange-trees, we follow to Cordova. 

Beautifully located at the southern base of the Sierra, and 
of far-reaching historical interest, Cordova is nevertheless one 
of the least pleasing of all the Spanish cities. In ancient 
times it must have been far otherwise. By the Goths it was 
called " holy and learned," and by the Carthaginians " the 
gem of the South." During the Roman civil wars it took 
sides with Pompey, and was therefore half destroyed by Caesar, 
who is said to have slaughtered twenty-eight thousand of its 
people as a terror to the rest. Marcellus rebuilt it, and colo- 
nized it with impecunious patricians from Rome, from which 
circumstance it became known as Patricia. Under the Romans 
it was the seat of a celebrated university, which taught philoso- 
phy and rhetoric especially, and sustained a professorship of 
Greek. Among the eminent persons born in Cordova during 
the Roman period were the two Senecas and the poets Sextilius 
Henna and Lucan ; in more recent times it was the place of 
nativity of the painter Cespedes, the "Spanish Chaucer" Juan 
de Mena, and of the great captain Gonsalvo de Cordova, 
leader of the armies of Ferdinand and Isabella. Cordova lost 
its importance under the Goths, but regained it under the 
Moors, who transformed it into a seat of wealth, luxury, and 
learning rivalling Bagdad in its splendors, and so renowned in 
letters as to be called the Athens of the West. The accounts 
of its prosperity and magnificence during this period — from 
the ninth century to the twelfth — almost rival the tales of the 
Arabian Nights. Its population, now about forty thousand, 
is said to have then reached an aggregate of a million souls. 

The great mosque of Cordova, founded in the year 786 by 



340 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Abdurrahman I., rose in wondrous beauty on the site of an 
ancient Roman temple dedicated to Janus. To make room 
for it, many buildings were torn away, including a basilica, in 
the use of which the Moslems and Christians — strange to say 
— had enjoyed an amicable partnership. The mosque of 
Abdurrahman, intended by him to be the most magnificent in 
the world, was enlarged by his successors — particularly by the 
Khalif Almansur — until it covered an area of three hundred 
and ninety-four feet from east to west, and five hundred and 
fifty-six feet from north to south, the whole enclosed by walls 
six feet thick and thirty to sixty feet high. The low but 
graceful roof of colored tiles was supported by twelve hun- 
dred — some authorities say fourteen hundred — slender columns, 
linked together from capital to capital by exquisitely-rounded 
Moorish arches in gay colors, appearing, when viewed obliquely, 
like plaited ribands. These columns were of jasper, porphyry, 
verd-antique, or precious marbles, susceptible of high polish. 
One hundred and forty of them were presented by Leo, the 
Emperor of Constantinople ; about two hundred more were 
taken from Nlmes and Narbonne, in France, and from Seville 
and Tarragona, in Spain ; the residue were brought from the 
plundered temples of Carthage and other cities of Africa. 
Not being of uniform length, the longest were sunk into the 
floor, and the shortest were spliced out by giving them a redun- 
dance of Corinthian capital. Their arrangement was in par- 
allel rows, extending lengthwise with the interior, which was 
thus divided into nineteen longitudinal and thirty-three trans- 
verse aisles, the former all opening into a roofless interior 
court, which was — and still is — planted with orange-trees and 
embellished with fountains. This court is that referred to in 
the " Tales of the Alhambra," wherein grew a palm-tree, 
" planted in days of yore by the great Abdurrahman," whereon 
sat a wondrous parrot which had "all the learning of the 
East at the tip of his tongue," and was " a universal favorite 



TOLEDO AND CORDOVA. 341 

with the fair sex," on account of his talent for quoting poetry, 
yet would " burst into a fit of rickety laughter" at " the mere 
mention of love." The court and its orauge-trees are still 
there, and loiterers still lounge within its precincts, but the 
palm-tree has disappeared, and the cynical parrot no longer 
discourses to the multitude. 

In its completed state the interior of this splendid mosque, 
illuminated, as we are told it was, by four thousand silver 
lamps, and by a great silver speculum of thirty-six thousand 
facets, must have been transcendently beautiful. But the sad 
truth must be told, that in the process of adapting it to its 
present use as a place of Christian worship, its beauty has 
been greatly marred. All of the aisles which opened into the 
court have been closed but three, while at their interior ex- 
tremities chapels have been built, the emblems and style of 
which produce lamentable architectural discord. The most 
destructive and incongruous of these additions is the choir, — an 
ornate, cumbersome structure, so located as to greatly impair 
the forest-like effect of the columns and the beautiful bewil- 
derment of plaited arches. When Charles V. saw this " im- 
provement," after having mistakenly sanctioned it, he confessed 
his misplaced leniency by the remark, " You have built here 
what you, or any one, might have built anywhere else ; but 
you have destroyed what was unique in the world." 

The style of the exterior walls is original and pleasing. A 
striking effect is produced by their square, buttressed towers 
with bearded parapets, and their portals of Oriental type, with 
latticed openings, Moorish spandrels, and Cufic inscriptions. 
The bronze plating on the doors of the principal entrance to 
the court bears the legend, in Gothic and Arabic, " The Empire 
belongs to God ; all is His." 

A pilgrimage to this mosque was deemed equivalent to one 
made to the shrine of Mecca, which alone surpassed it in the 
veneration of the Moslem world. The lovely little sanctuary 

29* 



342 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

is still preserved which was known as the Mihrab, wherein a 
copy of the Koran, written by Mahomet's friend and com- 
panion, Othnian, was deposited in a small heptagonal recess, 
with shell-shaped roof, and point turned towards Mecca. The 
Mihrab is decorated with brilliant Byzantine mosaics, donated 
by the Emperor Leo, who sent his Greek artists to teach this 
art to the Moorish workmen. The stone floor still shows the 
well-marked path worn by the feet of Moslem pilgrims, who 
performed here, as is done at Mecca, the pious duty of walk- 
ing seven times around the sacred shrine of their religion. 

The lofty Moorish walls, with octagonal towers, which still 
surround the older part of Cordova, are built of a mixture of 
stone, brick, and cement, and are supposed to stand very nearly 
upon the line of Roman circumvallation described by Csesar. 
In one or two places the tops of venerable palm-trees rise above 
them, adding their own strange suggestiveness to the fancies 
awakened by these huge crumbling buttresses. Excepting the 
great mosque, these walls, now burrowed -with the hovels of 
the indigent, are almost the only substantial vestiges which 
remain here of the mediseval pride and splendor of the Moors. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 

My journey from Cordova to Granada fell upon one of the 
fairest days of an Andalusian May. So long as our course 
pointed southward, it lay amid undulating landscapes, with 
smooth, flowing outlines and mountainous confines, both north 
and south, where rose, treeless and shadowy, the purple-tinted 
forms of the Sierras. The surface of the country was richly 
mottled with olive-orchards, vineyards, grain-fields, and patches 




MOORISH INTERIOR. 
Algiers. 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 343 

of meadow. It was a pleasing picture of bucolic loveliness, 
yet this favored region does not sustain its ancient reputation 
for fertility and luxuriance. Its population seems to be sparse, 
and its agriculture in a languid, backward condition, for which 
the land monopoly of the nobility and clergy is no doubt, in 
part, responsible. With some parts of Northern Italy, West- 
ern Germany, or of France and Belgium, where the metayer 
and peasant proprietorship systems prevail, it compares but 
indifferently in painstaking and productive husbandry. 

At Bobadilla, situated in the open country at the northern 
base of the Ronda Mountains, we quit the main stem of the 
railway continuing to Malaga, and turn eastward towards 
Granada. Beyond Antequera, an old town abounding in 
Roman and Moorish associations, we pass through a broad 
gate-way of the Sierras into the so-called Vega, or valley of 
the Xenil. This Avas the garden-land of the Moors, and their 
last citadel. It is still garden-like, notwithstanding all it has 
suffered from the neglect and devastation of man. Its scenery 
is truly Arcadian. North, south, and east it is shut in by 
mountain barriers rising behind its girdle of hills pinnacled 
with the ruined strongholds of the Moor, while high over all 
the Sierra Nevada, with its single glacier, the most southerly 
one in Europe, lifts its summits, wrapped in perpetual snow. 
Watered from the snowy sierras, the vegetation of this valley, 
like its climate, covers the entire range from arctic to semi- 
tropic, from the hardiest Alpine lichen to the orange, the 
indigo-tree, and the sugar-cane. The olive, the aloe, and the 
fig diversify the rich foliage, the vine swings burdened with 
its purpling fruit, and the pomegranate displays its flaming 
crest. Cotton and hemp grow side by side with the cereals of 
the north, and crops follow crops through all the seasons in 
unbroken succession. 

Historically speaking, this is one of the most interesting 
regions of the world. The very mountains, solemn and 



344 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

shadowy, seem like dim old memories, looming out of the 
obscurity and silence of the past. There is scarcely a cliff or 
a brook which has not its legend, scarcely a locality which has 
not been consecrated by romance, poetry, or history. Andalusia 
was the Tarshish of the Bible. Here the ancient Phoenicians 
came in quest of fortune, and the fervid imagination of the 
Orient pictured the Elysian Fields. Here Carthaginian and 
Roman disputed with one another for the mastery of the 
world, and here art and literature flourished when Greece and 
Rome decayed. Saddest of all, here Moslem and Christian 
fought out their deadly feud, and a heart-broken race quitted, 
in humiliation and despair, the fruits of seven centuries of 
toil. 

The evening light was falling softly on the hills as we passed 
the old town of Loja, once the key of Granada, around whose 
castellated battlements, now decayed and sallow with age, the 
Moslem army made its final and ineffectual struggle with that 
of Ferdinand and Isabella. Farther on we passed the " bridge 
of Pinos," a defile, says Irving, " famous in the Moorish wars 
for many a desperate encounter between the Christians and 
infidels." It is also famous for another and better reason, for 
here took place an event of immense importance to the West- 
ern World. The story of that event, so interesting to every 
American, may be briefly told. 

Near the little seaport of Palos, on the Andalusian coast, 
stood, in the fifteenth century, and still stands, the ancient 
Franciscan convent of Santa Maria la Rabida. At the gate of 
this convent a pedestrian stranger of distinguished air, though 
humbly clad, stopped one day with his little boy to request 
some bread and water for the child. The stranger was Co- 
lumbus ; the prior of the convent was Juan Perez de Mar- 
chena, who had once been confessor to the queen. Happening 
to pass by while the refreshment was being served, the good 
prior, struck with the appearance of the wayfarer, engaged 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 345 

him in conversation, and drew from him the avowal of his 
wonderful geographical theories, and the daring schemes of 
exploration upon which he had already labored for nearly 
eighteen years. Baffled in his efforts to enlist the sovereigns 
cf Spain or Portugal in his enterprise, Columbus was at this 
time about to betake himself to the court of France. Deeply 
interested in what he had heard, Juan Perez persuaded the 
stranger to tarry as the guest of the convent until he could 
consult the veteran mariners of Palos. Among these was 
Martin Alonzo Pinzon, a man of wealth, and the head of a 
family of experienced navigators. Pinzon also became in- 
terested, and offered to bear, from his own purse, the expenses 
of a renewed application to the Spanish court. This generous 
proposal prompted Friar Juan Perez to address the queen a 
letter on the subject, which was at once despatched by a shrewd 
pilot of the neighborhood, named Rodriguez. Queen Isabella 
was at this time with the army at Santa Fe, a few miles up 
the valley from Pinos, where a " military city" had been built 
up to convince the Moors that the siege of Granada would endure 
until successful. Rodriguez executed his mission with discre- 
tion, and brought back encouraging assurances from Isabella, 
coupled with a request that Perez would repair immediately to 
court. The kind-hearted friar saddled his mule, and set out 
before the following midnight. Arriving at Santa Fe while 
the siege of Granada was still in progress, he soon obtained an 
audience, and eloquently presented the cause of Columbus to 
the queen. His earnest words were warmly seconded by the 
queen's friend and favorite, the Marchioness de Moya. Isa- 
bella was persuaded, and requested that Columbus should 
return for further conference. At the same time she illustrated 
her nobleness of nature by directing that the sum of twenty 
thousand maravedis (about two hundred and sixteen dollars) 
should be presented to the impoverished navigator, with which 
to pay his travelling expenses and provide himself with apparel 



346 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

suitable for making a decorous appearance at court. Perez, 
overjoyed at the success of his mission, hastened back to La 
Rabid a. 

Immediately upon receiving the message of the queen, and 
her gift, Columbus purchased a mule, and set out once more 
for the camp before Granada. He arrived in time, says the 
historian, " to witness the memorable surrender of Granada to 
the Spanish arms. He beheld Boabdil, the last of the Moorish 
kings, sally forth from the Alhambra and yield up the keys 
of that favorite seat of Moorish power, while the king and 
queen, with all the chivalry and rank and magnificence of 
Spain, moved forward in proud and solemn procession to receive 
this token of submission." It was " one of the most brilliant 
triumphs," continues the chronicler, " in Spanish history. 
After near eight hundred years of painful struggle, the 
crescent was completely cast downj the cross exalted in its place, 
and the standard of Spain was seen floating on the highest 
tower of the Alhambra. The whole court and army were 
abandoned to jubilee." 

But the public exchequer had been depleted by the war, and 
the requirement of Columbus that, in case of success, he 
should be invested with certain dignities and emoluments, pro- 
voked the resentment of the nobility and clergy. While King 
Ferdinand continued to regard his projects coldly, Queen Isa- 
bella was shaken in her support of them by the dissuasion of 
her confidential advisers. Columbus would concede nothing, 
and his negotiations failed. Mounting his mule, he set out for 
Cordova, from whence he intended to depart at once for 
France. This was in February, 1492. But it so happened 
that Columbus had gained two earnest friends at court, who 
were firm believers in his cause, and perceived the star of his 
destiny. They were Luis de St. Angel and Alonzo de 
Quaintanilla, revenue officers to the crown. These friends, 
deeply distressed at the loss of what they esteemed a great 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 347 

opportunity for Spain, hastened to represent the matter once 
more to the queen, anil were heartily seconded in their efforts 
by the Marchioness de Moya. Their eloquence kindled the 
enthusiasm of Isabella. The great endeavor dawned upon her 
mind in all its grandeur, and she exclaimed, " I undertake the 
enterprise for my own crown of Castile, and will pledge my 
jewels to raise the necessary funds." " This," says Washington 
Irving, "was the proudest moment in the life of Isabella; it 
stamped her renown forever as the patroness of the discovery 
of the New World." 

A messenger, despatched with all speed to summon Columbus 
to return, overtook him at the bridge of Pinos. He hesitated 
for a moment, then turned back to Santa Fe, and was graciously 
received by his royal benefactress. On the 17th of April, 1492, 
stipulations for the expedition were signed, and on the 12th of 
May following, Columbus took leave of the court and set out for 
Palos, there to organize and equip his momentous expedition. 

It was some time after nightfall when we arrived at Granada, 
and drove, first through the narrow lanes of the old town, 
then, amid deep forest shadows, silent except the purling of 
descending waters, up the winding ascent of the Alhambra 
hill. Near the summit were two hotels, standing opposite to 
one another, amid thick foliage, near the massive walls of the 
Alhambra. • Looking out of my window next morning, I found 
that I could toss a penny to the tower of the Siete Suelos and 
the grand gate — afterwards walled up as of bad omen — by 
which Boabdil emerged for the last time from his palace, ac- 
companied by his dejected followers. Damp, mouldy, and 
suggestive of rheumatism, as well as of romance, the place is 
infested with nightingales, whose song at night mingles with 
the silver sound of many a rivulet which the cunning hand 
of the Moor has conducted thither from the sportive current 
of the Xenil. 

To the imagination the Alhambra — "red castle" of the 



348 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Moors — is one of the most captivating themes in history. The 
human fancy will always delight in its poetic tales and legends, 
and the human heart will always be touched by the pathetic 
story of its conquest and decay. In its perfected state, as the 
stronghold of the Granadian princes, it was both a sumptuous 
palace and a powerful fortress. Forty thousand men could be 
quartered within its massive, turreted walls. Viewing it in 
its admirable position, and adaptation for defence, we are not 
surprised at the difficulties of its conquest, but rather that it 
was conquered at all. But in its present condition the Alham- 
bra is a melancholy and disappointing wreck. For centuries 
after Boabdil's fall it was a subject of pillage and depreda- 
tion. Charles V. tore away some of its most characteristic 
portions, including its entire southern facade, in order to make 
room for a clumsy, nondescript palace, which he never com- 
pleted. Plundered by its successive governors, it was finally 
ravaged by the French invaders, who blew up eight of its 
towers, and tried to demolish the rest. We wonder, not that so 
little, but that so much of this gay, slenderly- wrought architect- 
ure has survived so many vicissitudes. The Arabesque is but 
poorly adapted, at best, to withstand even the natural effects 
of time and decay. It seems, and it is, fragile and transitory 
in comparison with the massive and robust Corinthian and 
Doric. Its natural association is with such scenes of Oriental 
luxury and splendor as the poet ascribes to " the golden prime 
of the good Haroun-al-Raschid," — scenes and pictures which the 
bard thus gracefully portrays before the delighted imagina- 
tion : 

Adown the Tigris I was borne, 
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold, 
High-walled gardens green and old. 

Anight my shallop, rustling thro' 
The low and bloomed foliage, drove 
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove 
The citron shadows in the blue : 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 349 

By garden porches on the brim, 
The costly doors flung open wide, 
Gold glittering through lamplight dim, 
And broidered sofas on each side. 

Far off", and where the lemon-grove 
In closest coverture upsprung, 
The living airs of middle night 
Died round the bulbul as he sung. 

With dazed vision unawares 
From the long alley's latticed shade 
Emerged, I came upon the great 
Pavilion of the Caliphat. 
Right to the carven cedarn doors, 
Flung inward over spangled floors, 
Broad-based flights of marble stairs 
Ban up with golden balustrade. 

The fourscore windows all alight 
As with the quintessence of flame, 
A million tapers flaring bright 
From twisted silvers, looked to shame 
The hollow-vaulted dark, and streamed 
Upon the mooned domes aloof 
In inmost Bagdat, till there seemed 
Hundreds of crescents on the roof 
Of night new risen. 

Then stole I up, and trancedly 
Gazed on the Persian girl alone, 
Serene, with argent-lidded eyes 
Amorous, and lashes like to rays 
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl 
Tressed with redolent ebony, 
In many a dark, delicious curl 
Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone. 



Of like character are the pictures which the fancy conjures 
up of this " boasted terrestrial paradise" of the Moorish kings 
of Granada. Washington Irving truly says, " It is impossi- 
ble to contemplate this once favorite abode of Oriental man- 
ners without feeling the early associations of Arabian romance 
and almost expecting to see the white arm of some mysterious 

30 



350 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

princess beckoning from the balcony, or some dark eye spark- 
ling through the lattice. The abode of beauty is here, as if it 
had been inhabited but yesterday ; but where are the Zoraydas 
and Lindaraxas?" 

It would be altogether superfluous to undertake to add any- 
thing to Irving's descriptions of the Alhambra. It is very 
much the same now that it was when he rambled and mused 
amid its ruins. We enter the fortress by just such an immense 
Arabian arch as he mentions, with an outside key-stone carved 
with the emblem of a hand, and an inside one displaying a 
huge key. The famous Court of Lions, with its fountain cele- 
brated in poetry and romance, are just as he saw them. "The 
alabaster basins still shed their diamond drops, and the twelve 
lions which support them cast forth their crystal streams as in 
the days of Boabdil." The magic charm which according to 
popular tradition has preserved the light and graceful archi- 
tecture and delicate ornamentation of this court through " the 
wear and tear of centuries," " the shocks of earthquakes," 
" the violence of war," and the " pilferings of the tasteful 
traveller," still holds its potency. The Hall of the Aben- 
cerrages, and the alleged blood-marks on its pavement, caused 
by the atrocious butchery of thirty-six gallant cavaliers of that 
name, were shown to us, just as they are described by Irving. 
The superb chamber known as the Hall of the Ambassadors, 
although stripped of its vases and all other loose ornaments, 
rebukes with its mutilated magnificence the vandalism of its 
despoilers. This saloon contains nine alcoves, in one of which 
the throne was placed. The views of the old city, the Vega, 
and the distant mountains from the arched windows of this 
chamber are said to have elicited, as we may well believe, the 
exclamatory admiration of Charles V. 

A passage with iron gratings leads from the great tower of 
Comares to the whispering gallery and the Moorish baths, — 
apartments which have been miscalled the prison of Boabdil's 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 351 

queen. Over the halls and grottos of the baths is a suite of 
rooms, with Spanish decorations, which were fitted up in 
1526 for the beautiful Elizabeth of Parma and her maids. 
Irving tells a delightful story of the manner in which he dis- 
covered these rooms and took up his abode therein. The 
locality was his favorite haunt, and his pen loved to dwell 
upon its unique aspects and romantic associations. There were 
two lofty rooms, he says, speaking of his chosen apartments, 
with an outward prospect towards the Generalife and its em- 
bowered terraces, and looking inward upon the bewitching 
little court and garden of Lindaraxa, with its Oriental foun- 
tain of alabaster and its thickets of roses and myrtles, of 
citrons and oranges. " The garden of Lindaraxa was still 
adorned with flowers; the fountain still presented its crystal 
mirror." And such is the case to this day. 

The best view which the Alhambra affords is that from its 
tower known as the Torre de la Vela, so called because, upon its 
silver-toned bell, at regular intervals during the night, signals 
were struck to the Moorish irrigators in the Vega. This tower, 
rising upon the outmost extremity of the Alhambra promon- 
tory, surveys a superb panorama, with the city directly below, 
the garden-like, mountain-fringed Vega beyond it, and the 
snowy sierra in the background. History and legend vie with 
Nature in giving interest to this scene. The luxuriant valley, 
twenty-five miles wide and thirty long, is dotted with villages 
and checkered with fields of variegated green, through which 
the flashing Xenil, descending from its parent glacier on the 
Sierra Nevada, courses like a silver riband. Far to the south- 
west rises a rounded spur of the Alpuxarras, on the summit 
of which, as the old custodian of the tower endeavors to ex- 
plain, Boabdil sighed and wept his last adieu to his kingdom 
and to this Eden planted by his people. " You do well," ex- 
claimed the haughty mother of the fallen prince, " to weep 
like a woman over what vou could not defend as a man." 



352 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

An inscription on the Torre cle la Vela records that the 
Christian flag was first hoisted over the Alhambra on January 
2, 1492, after seven hundred and seventy-seven years of Moorish 
occupancy in Spain. On the anniversary of the surrender the 
bell on the tower is rung, and the Alhambra is visited by 
crowds of peasants, with whom it is a favorite superstition that 
the maiden who strikes the bell is sure of a husband, and a 
good one if the stroke is sufficiently vigorous. 

In the old Romanesque cathedral, which we look down upon 
from the tower, lie entombed the mortal remains of Ferdinand 
and Isabella. The vault is reached by descent through a trap- 
door, which an attendant reveals by removing a carpet. The 
metallic coffins are plain and much indented, but have never, 
we are assured, been rifled or disturbed. The letter F desig- 
nates that- of Ferdinand, "the wisest king that ever ruled in 
Spain ;" the letter I that of Isabel, " the queen of earthly 
queens." The crypt is a simple one, far less grand than that 
of the Escorial, but not so gloomy in its associations. No 
epoch in Spanish history suggested by that splendid pantheon 
is worthy of so much pride as that of which these unpreten- 
tious shrines remind us. 

In the time of the Moors the city of Granada had a popu- 
lation, it is said, of half a million souls ; now it has about 
seventy thousand. Much of its architecture shows traces of 
Moorish origin, but there is little such which has not been so 
modernized as to have lost its original character. Of the sup- 
pressed convents in the suburbs, several of which were once 
possessed of great wealth, the most important is the Carthusian, 
founded upon an estate which was the gift of the Grand Cap- 
tain, Gonsalvo de Cordova. The solitary sacristan who con- 
ducts the visitor around this deserted and lonely establishment, 
displays with great pride its numerous treasures, among which 
are some rare and costly agates, splendid marbles, and no end 
of inlaid work in ebony, tortoise-shell, and mother-of-pearl. 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 353 

Among the paintings which the convent possesses are some 
revolting representations of alleged persecutions and tortures 
of the Carthusians in England by Henry "VIII. Most of 
these paintings are very inferior as works of art, but in one of 
them the artist has performed the singular feat in foreshorten- 
ing of making a pair of horses appear to be moving straight 
from the spectator, whether the picture is viewed from the right, 
left, or front. 

The bull-ring of Granada is a huge, roofless amphitheatre, 
built of wood, capable of seating about twenty thousand per- 
sons. Coming upon it by accident in the course of our mean- 
derings, we were conducted through it by an attendant. In 
the stables were a number of wretched-looking steeds, aged 
and raw-boned as Don Quixote's Rosinante, yet considered 
good enough to be slain by doughty bulls for the amusement 
of the gentle dames and spirited young dons of Granada. On 
the stockade surrounding the arena were great streaks and 
blotches of blood, which had spurted from the wounded ani- 
mals in various combats. While these were being pointed out 
to us it was stated as an interesting fact, incident to the noble 
practice of bull-fighting, that a horse would sometimes have 
the strength and pluck to continue in the fight to the finish, 
although its sides might be ripped open by an infuriated bull, 
and its entrails trailing on the ground and dangling about 
its feet. 

We were then conducted to the chambers where the mata- 
dores dressed themselves, and where were kept the trappings 
for ornamenting the horses, and the apparatus for provoking the 
bulls. Among the articles of the latter sort were long poles 
with sharp spikes in the end, masks, dummy horses, and vari- 
ous other devices and instruments of torture cunningly adapted 
to arouse the wrath of a peaceably-disposed bull, and convert 
him into an infuriated demon. In one of the rooms, impro- 
vised as a chapel, there were crucifixes and other pious para- 
x 30* 



354 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

phernalia, by which the last offices of the church might, in 
case of sudden emergency, be administered to a mortally- 
wounded matadore, so that his gentle spirit might not take its 
flight unshriven. There appeared to be no similar provision 
for the bulls and horses, they being only brutes, and having 
no souls. 

Since 1873 direct railway communication has been complete 
between Granada and Seville. Returning from Granada to 
Bobadilla, we thence take our course through a rolling but 
mostly open country, via Osuna and Utrera, with the peaks of 
the sierras distantly visible. The towns on these Andalusian 
plains, being generally of Gothic or Roman origin, have all an 
ancient appearance, with conspicuous Moorish features. The 
scenery, despite its somewhat worn and rather solitary aspect, 
has a unique loveliness peculiar to Southern Spain. Nature 
has here arranged her tones, colors, lights, and shadows with 
infinite art. The neutral yellowish-gray of the mountains 
serves as an advantageous foil to the positive green of the 
plains below them. The contrast is toned down somewhat, 
but not impaired, by delicate tints of purple, which make us 
doubt sometimes whether it is really a mountain that we see, 
or the cloudy semblance of one floating along the horizon. 
The gray-green of the olive orchards accords well with the 
purple-gray of the sierras, and the meadow-green of the fields 
by no means breaks the harmony. The colors are not strong, 
and neither is the light, as in the Alps, but all is gentle aud 
dreamy, as if the dim old centuries, so many of which have 
left their human traces here, had shed upon the land something 
of their own remoteness and mystery. A railway seems out 
of place in such a country ; we yearn for leisurely enjoyment 
of that fine frenzy of romantic reverie whioh only such a cli- 
mate and such scenery can produce. 

As we approach the Guadalquivir we enter one of the most 
fertile districts in Spain, celebrated from ancient times until 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 355 

now for its oil and olives. Here the aloe flourishes, and the 
cactus, often planted in the form of a hedge, to serve as 
fencing, reaches an extraordinary height. The palm-tree and 
the parasol pine, sure indicators of a warm climate, grow 
spontaneously. 

Seville, the metropolis of this valley and of Andalusia, had 
its origin with the Phoenicians, but afterwards became a Gothic 
capital, and passed successively under the dominion of the 
Carthaginians, Romans, and Moors. Life in Seville is much 
after the manner of that in Naples. While winter does not 
come with any of its hard lines, the long, hot summers pro- 
mote indolence. The noontide hours, when all who can do so 
seek refuge from the midsummer heat, are the most tranquil 
of the twenty-four. Trading and shopping are mostly done 
after sundown, from which time until midnight the streets are 
full of gayety and life. The most fashionable evening drive 
and promenade is the Alameda, a stately thoroughfare, with 
marginal gardens and rows of palms and pomegranate-trees, 
along the left bank of the Guadalquivir. 

One of the sober phases of Sevillian life is seen at the 
government tobacco factory. This enormous establishment 
employs about six thousand women and girls. It manu- 
factures cigars, cigarettes, snuff, and cut tobacco for the 
Spanish market, using chiefly the Cuban and North American 
leaf. The women are paid for their work by the piece, re- 
ceiving from four to six reals (eighteen to twenty-seven cents) 
per day. They are permitted to come to the factory from 7 
until 10 o'clock A.M., and may remain until 8 P.M. They 
must all reside outside of the government premises, which are 
surrounded by a moat and kept under strict military guard, to 
prevent smuggling. No schools or hospitals are provided for 
the employes, of whom most are very ignorant, and some 
immoral. Not more than one in a hundred can read. The 
majority of them are young, but some are middle-aged, some 



356 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

very old, and some yet children of tender years. Many 
mothers bring with them their babes, which are seen coddled 
in cradles, or crowing amid the tobacco leaves on the work- 
tables. Beside these tables, on one vast, unpartitioned floor, 
the workers sit in groups of fifteen or twenty. Most of the 
women are true Spaniards in appearance, with tawny skin and 
eyes black as coal. Beauty is exceptional among them, 
although a few are quite handsome. It is a wonder that any 
of them can retain the color of health, sitting, as they do, from 
day to day, amid such fumes of nicotine. Some of the girls 
wore roses in their black hair, and I noticed one pale little 
maid who kept a bunch of flowers amid the tobacco on the 
table before her. 

The name of Seville cannot be mentioned without brino-in^ 
to mind its great cathedral, which, while it preserves the ex- 
terior form of the Moorish mosque which once occupied its 
site, in its interior is a sublime specimen of Gothic art, impos- 
ing alike by the vastness and perfection of its proportions. Its 
painted windows, the work of Flemish artists, are among the 
finest specimens extant of deep, harmonious color enriched by 
the lapse of centuries. The grand central aisle is a majestic 
Gothic arch, springing aloft in such captivating lines as to 
carry with it the very soul of the beholder in its ambitious 
flight. On either side are two minor aisles, and also a series 
of chapels. Under the floor, near the main entrance, Colon, 
the son and biographer of Columbus, lies buried. A plain 
marble slab, carved with an epitaph and two quaint ships, 
marks the spot. In the chapter library, an adjoining build- 
ing, some manuscripts in the handwriting of Columbus, and 
some rude maps drawn by him, are shown. These documents 
were prepared by the great explorer while in prison, to answer 
the accusations of the Inquisition. 

One of the most important relics which the cathedral pos- 
sesses is an image of the Virgin, said to have been presented 



THROUGH ANDALUSIA. 357 

to St. Ferdinand by St. Louis of France. It is called The 
Virgin of the Kings. The image, which is of life-size, is 
kept behind a screen, and only exhibited by special request. 
It is made of wood, wears a crown and hair of gold, and is 
seated on a throne of silver. A small pecuniary reward in- 
duced the attendants to draw aside the screen, and permit me 
to behold this wonderful effigy. The exhibitors reverently 
turned away their faces, scarcely venturing to glance at an 
object so sacred, but I must confess that, divested of its purely 
religious claim to respect, its appearance was not awe-inspiring. 

The treasures of the church, deposited in the sacristy, are 
of immense value. Among them is a portable silver altar, to 
carry which requires the services of twenty men. Massive sil- 
ver candelabra accompany the altar ; also a superb monstrance, 
dating from 1587, which is considered one of the finest speci- 
mens of the silversmith's art ever executed in Spain. The 
sacristy contains, among other precious articles of special in- 
terest, an agate chalice, the rock-crystal cup of St. Ferdinand, 
a fine Gothic cross of 1530, a gold censer, a Gothic Lignum 
Crucis, a cross made from the first gold brought by Columbus 
from America, and a splendid monstrance studded with twelve 
hundred gems. Among the relics are shown a sliver from the 
Crown of Thorns, and the identical keys delivered to St. Ferdi- 
nand by the Moors when they surrendered Seville. The vest- 
ments of the priests, made of the finest fabrics, and embroidered 
with gold, are kept in a glass cabinet devoted to that purpose. 

The name of Murillo is inseparably associated with that of 
Seville. The great artist was born here, and here, like one of 
his own matchless beggar-boys, he passed his early youth in 
poverty and neglect. Made an object of charity by a distant 
relative, he learned here his first crude lessons in art, and here 
he afterwards executed most of his celebrated works. Yet 
Seville possesses but twenty-four of his paintings, besides two 
or three in the cathedral. They are hung upon the dull, taste- 



358 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

less walls of a suppressed monastery, now used as a museum, 
and are among the least meritorious of his productions. Let 
us turn from them to that which is more interesting and beau- 
tiful, — the story of his life. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

bartolome esteban murillo. 

Spanish art is a child of adverse fortune. It had its origin 
about the year 1450, when Juan Sanchez de Castro established 
at Seville the earliest school of Spanish painting. But for 
more than a century after that its growth was stinted, feeble, 
and precarious. Born amid the gloom of the convent, it was 
brought up under the iron hand of the Inquisition. Its 
moral and intellectual habitat was a fit counterpart to the land 
of its nativity, aptly described by Irving as, for the most part, 
"a stern and melancholy country, with rugged mountains and 
long, sweeping plains, destitute of trees, and indescribably 
silent and lonesome." 

To the rollicking, sensuous freedom of Dutch and Flemish 
art the art of Spain was a stranger. No genial Venetian 
skies warmed and vivified it with their generous golden radi- 
ance. All its surroundings were austere and monastic. For- 
bidden to taste the bright fountains of classic inspiration, it 
was held to the strictest chastity and sobriety. Alike in sacred 
and profane things it was subject to the vigilant and jealous 
censorship of both church and state. Under such influences 
and restraints it grew up austere, devout, and sombre. Cramped 
in its sphere and its aspirations, its development was slow, and 
for more than a century its results, with few exceptions, were 
indifferent and capricious. 




A MODERN MOORISH TYFE. 
AlCIERS. 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 359 

The first important stimulus to healthy aud vigorous growth 
in Spanish art came from Italy. That stimulus began to be 
felt just at the period when Spain had reached the climax of 
her political aggrandizement under Charles V. At that time 
Diirer and Da Vinci had accomplished their work, Holbein was 
in the meridian of his career, and Raphael, Michael Angelo, 
and Titian were enriching and astonishing the world with the 
products of their genius. Enamoured with the work of Titian, 
Charles V. made him a pensioner and count palatine of the 
empire, and retained him as a guest at the imperial court. The 
emperor became known as a generous patron of art, and a 
genuine though tardy art revival spread itself over the Pen- 
insula. 

During the reign of Philip II., whose vast dominions em- 
braced nearly every art-producing country except the Italian 
Peninsula, the revival thus begun was fostered and still 
further stimulated. Titian, continuing in favor, remained at 
court, and many other Italian artists, attracted by the liberal 
patronage of the king and the wealthy noblemen, churches, 
and cloisters, came to Spain. Juanes and Ribalta studied in 
Italy, and returned accomplished in the style of Raphael; 
Antonio Moro, a Fleming, came from Antwerp and established 
a school of portrait-painting ; Morales, misnamed " The 
Divine," won something more than provincial reputation by 
his coarse and grotesque but vigorous art; Navarrete, "The 
Mute," returning from his studies in Venice, founded the 
school of Madrid ; Theotocopuli, " The Greek," filled the con- 
vents with bizarre imitations of his master, Tintoretto ; and 
Peter of Champagne, another Fleming, settled and labored at 
Seville. Upon the works of these and numerous other artists 
of minor reputation, and for the most part Italian by training 
or by birth, the wealth then being drawn from the New World 
was liberally expended in the adornment of convents, palaces, 
and churches. The directing and vastly-predominating influ- 



360 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

ence in the art of the country was Italian, and the schools of 
the Peninsula in the sixteenth century were more Italian than 
Spanish. 

It was not until the beginning of the seventeenth century 
that Spain produced any great master of painting worthy of 
the name. About that time a cardinal passing one day through 
the streets of Rome observed a bright-faced youth intently 
occupied in copyiug the frescos on the facade of a palace. 
The young artist was dirty and ragged, and beside him lay 
some crusts of bread which had been given him in charity. 
His earnestness and evident poverty touched the cardinal, who 
took him to his home, dressed him decently, and gave him a 
position in his household. 

The youth thus befriended was Jose 1 de Ribera, a native 
of Jativa, near Valencia, Spain. A pupil in the studio of 
Francisco Ribalta, in Valencia, this young enthusiast had been 
captivated by the splendors of Italian art then diffusing their 
lustre throughout Europe. Thinking only of Rome and its 
marvels, he quitted his home and country, and made his way, 
penniless and friendless, to the artistic and religious capital of 
the world. With no resources but a burning desire to learn, 
he exercised himself in making drawings of the frescos and 
statues of public buildings, and subsisted for a time upon the 
charity of the Roman artists, to whom he soon became known 
by the pet name of II Spagnoletto, or " The Little Spaniard."' 
The name thus acquired was destined to become illustrious in 
the annals of art. A pupil of the vagrant and turbulent 
Caravaggio, and a student of Correggio, Ribera developed a 
style as original as his genius, and settled in Naples, where he 
rose rapidly to fame and fortune, and became chief of the 
Neapolitan school. But in an evil hour his beautiful and 
favorite daughter fell into the wiles of Don Juan of Austria 
(natural son of Charles V.), who, abusing the privileges of a 
guest, and pretending honorable purposes, enticed her to her 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 361 

ruin. Broken in spirit by this calamity, Ribera died soon 
afterwards. His is one of the trinity of great names around 
which clusters all that is best and greatest in Spanish art. 
After him came Velasquez, and then Murillo. 

Although he never revisited his native country, Ribera did 
more than all who had preceded him to influence the formation 
of the Spanish school. The reputation he had acquired caused 
a great demand for his pictures in Spain, and drew Velasquez to 
Italy, where that great master, whose rising fame had preceded 
him, was received with the highest honors. Apartments were 
assigned to him at the Vatican, where he diligently copied the 
frescos of Michael Angelo and Raphael, although he regarded 
Titian as the greatest of the Italian artists. Before returning 
to Madrid, Velasquez visited all the principal art centres of 
Italy, including Naples, where he carefully studied Ribera's 
work, though apparently without fancying its subjects, or being 
materially influenced by its style. 

In the illustrious trinity of Spanish art the genius of 
Velasquez, with a strong individualism all its own, was of an 
intermediate and transition quality between that of Ribera and 
that of Murillo. Of Ribera's master, Caravaggio, it has been 
said that he painted like a ruffian because he was a ruffian. 
With deep shadows and obscure backgrounds, his pictures 
have an air of imposing mystery quite in keeping with his 
passionate and dramatic life. Like teacher, like pupil. In 
Ribera's work we see the legitimate product of his impetuous 
and fiery nature moulded by his Spanish training and by 
Caravaggio's influence. Gloomy, horrible, and frightfully 
strong and truthful, his pictures relate mostly to martyrdoms, 
tortures and executions. His art is the offspring and reflex 
of Spanish life and character as they emerged, savage, ascetic, 
and imperious, from the darkness and barbarism of the Middle 
Ages. With a passion for the cruel and revolting, he is a 
Michael Angelo in strength and correctness of anatomical 
<j 31 



362 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

drawing. No wonder that his pupil, Salvator Rosa, who was 
of like genius for the awful and fantastic, should have passed 
into art history as " The Savage." 

It is a relief to turn from the dismal precincts of this bloody- 
school to the work of Velasquez. Here also we see a reflex 
of Spain, but a vastly different one from that of Ribera. It 
is a harsh and ascetic Spain, still haughty and half savage, but 
chastened and restrained by reviving civilization, and tem- 
pered by the refining influence of the Italian renaissance. It 
does not appear that his studies in Italy produced any essential 
change in the style of Velasquez. The influence of Rubens, 
with whom he formed a personal acquaintance at Madrid, 
affected him more than that of the Italian masters. But an 
influence far more potent than any of these in giving character 
to his work, and to all Spanish art, was that of the court and 
the church. Ribera took his cue from the church, or, rather, 
the Inquisition, Velasquez from the court. 

King Philip IV., into whose service Velasquez was taken 
early in his career, was himself an artist and a lover of art. 
Yet in the enjoyment of his sovereign's partiality the master 
was by no means wholly fortunate. As chief chamberlain to 
the king, Velasquez was obliged to be in constant attendance 
upon His Majesty, and it was while making arrangements for 
the marriage of the Infanta to Louis XIV., on the famous 
lie de la Conference, that he contracted the fever of which he 
died. 

It is pitiful to think of a genius like that of Velasquez 
half the time absorbed with the dull and petty distractions of 
court routine, and even in its nobler functions obliged to 
pander to the doltish vanity of trumpery princes and grandees. 
Moving in such a sphere, Velasquez became chiefly a portrait- 
painter, and his subjects, mostly chosen for him by his royal 
patron, were scarcely less unlovely than those of Ribera. The 
members of the Austro-Spanish royal family, as Velasquez has 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 363 

portrayed them, are the opposite of all that is graceful or at- 
tractive either in person or in dress. Among the least agree- 
able of them all was Philip himself, whose vapid, long-jawed, 
preposterous countenance the hapless court painter was obliged 
to reproduce over and over ad nauseam. The fashions of the 
day were also as repugnant as possible to all enjoyable art, 
particularly those adopted by the women, who were done up 
in prodigious hoops and long-waisted, armor-like corsets, and 
who seem to have particularly prided themselves on having 
their hair twisted and frizzled into shapes of mountainous 
deformity. 

An artist busied with such material could not be expected 
to take frequent inspiration from the sublime and beautiful in 
out-door nature, or even from higher religious themes. There 
could be no lofty spiritual incentive, or seeking after the ideal, 
in the slavish routine of painting court dolls, dwarfs, and 
dunces. Nor was there for Velasquez. He missed the ideal 
in art, and became an embodiment of intense, energetic real- 
ism. This, however, was probably due quite as much to nat- 
ural choice and taste as to force of circumstances. A key to 
the artistic nature of Velasquez is found in his disrelish for 
Raphael.* His mind was too unimaginative, too naturalistic, 
to appreciate the sublime Italian. But what he lacked in im- 
agination he made up in truth and power. He is realistic, but 
his realism, like his personality, is of the noblest quality. He 
sought the true rather than the beautiful, and his truth is 
gigantic. If art were solely the imitation of nature, the world 
would not have seen a greater painter. 

* Boschini says that, being asked by Salvator Kosa what he thought 
of Kaphael, Velasquez 

" Bowed his figure tall 
And said, 

4 For Raphael, to speak the truth, — 
I always was plain-spoken from my youth, — 
I cannot say I like his works at all.' " 



364 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

From the gloomy naturalism of Ribera, and the materialistic 
realism of Velasquez, we pass to the bright and sublimated 
ideal of Murillo. The transition is much like unto that from 
the Inferno through the Purgatorio to the Paradiso. 

Like Velasquez, whose junior he was by nineteen years, 
Murillo was a native of Seville. He was born on New- Year's 
Day, 1618, and received the baptismal name of Bartolome 
Esteban. In early childhood little Bartolome gave sign of his 
genius by scratching figures and sketches on the whitewashed 
walls and brick floors of his father's house. His parents were 
poor, and his youth a melancholy one, passed without education 
or pleasure, except the happiness he found in sketching the 
ragged, sunburnt children of the street. At length, out of 
compassion and charity, his uncle, Juan del Castillo, a Seville 
artist of inferior talents, took him into his studio as a pupil. 
But Castillo could only instruct the boy in drawing, and in 
his own cold, dry style of coloring, aud it was not long until 
the apt scholar had learned all of art that his master knew. 
How different this from the training of Michael Angelo 
by the brilliant Ghirlandaio, or that of Raphael by the great 
Leonardo's friend, Perugino ! 

Castillo having removed to Cadiz, Murillo was cast upon 
his own resources. He therefore betook himself to the pro- 
duction of cheap images of the Virgin and the saints, which 
he painted on wood, and offered for sale in the Thursday 
markets. These crude paintings were eagerly bought by ex- 
porters and ship-captains for the newly-converted population 
of Mexico and Peru, and to this day many of them are relig- 
iously treasured in the churches of Spanish South America. 

Thus the young artist reached his twenty-third year, when, 
by accident, a great awakening took place in his mind. Pedro 
de Moya, who had been one of his school-fellows under Cas- 
tillo, now returned from Flanders, where he had been taught 
by Vandyke, and had schooled himself in the style of that 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 365 

master. As soon as he saw Moya's paintings, Murillo's soul 
was on fire. It was the revelation of a world of beauty, and 
the dawn of splendid possibilities no glimpse of which had 
hitherto crossed his provincial horizon. He was in an ecstasy 
of delight and enthusiastic aspiration, and his conscious genius 
thirsted unspeakably for training and for opportunity. But 
he had neither money nor helpful friends. He resolved to 
help himself. Having bought a large canvas, he cut it into 
small pieces upon which he painted the Madonna and the 
infant Saviour accompanied by the cherubic host and encircled 
with garlands of flowers. These little paintings he sold at the 
fair in Seville, and with the small sum thus obtained in his 
pocket he set out on foot for Madrid. It seemed a pitiful 
undertaking, but the friendless young Andalusian who thus 
trudged away un missed and uncared for was destined to win a 
fairer fame for himself, and confer a nobler distinction upon 
his country, than its proudest captains had ever achieved. 

At Madrid, Murillo sought Velasquez, then in the full merid- 
ian of his fame. The great court painter, whose generous heart 
was of like mould with his genius, received him kindly, gave 
him instruction and the means of earning subsistence, and 
secured for him what he chiefly sought, the opportunity to 
study the famous Italian and Flemish paintings then hung in 
the palace, the Escorial, and the master's studio. What hap- 
piness, what privilege was this for the craving and expanding 
soul newly eliminated from the little art world of a provincial 
town ! 

For two years Murillo remained at Madrid, working, copy- 
ing, and learning under the direction of Velasquez, whose 
generous help did not stop with encouraging him by words of 
praise and promise, but went so far as to bring his work to 
the favorable notice of the king. Velasquez also urged 
Murillo to go to Rome, at the same time offering to pay all 
his expenses, and proposing to secure for him an influential 

31* 



366 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

acquaintance in Italy. But the simple-hearted artist felt a 
dread of great cities and courts, and turned back to his native 
Seville. His return, like his departure, was unnoticed, but 
he only lacked the opportunity now to compel the world to 
recognize his genius. The opportunity soon came. The friars 
of the Franciscan convent at Seville desired to have some his- 
torical pictures painted in one of the cloisters of their establish- 
ment, but the artists of their choice hesitated to undertake the 
work for the moderate compensation offered. The friars then 
turned to Murillo, who accepted the commission, and executed 
it so superbly as to create universal astonishment. At one 
bound he reached the lofty position to which his talents en- 
titled him, and henceforth he had no lack of orders. All 
Seville was in raptures over his charming and original style, 
more winning than that of Vandyke, Ribera, or Velasquez. 

Quickly following this came another happy event which 
added much both to his felicity and his usefulness. Having 
occasion to visit Pilas, the birthplace of his mother, a short 
distance from Seville, his eyes there fell upon Donna Beatriz 
de Cabrera, a lady of great beauty and intelligence and con- 
siderable fortune. The artist became enamoured with her, but 
shrank from proposing an alliance with one so much above his 
station. His good fortune soon made amends for his diffi- 
dence. Being engaged to paint an altar-piece for a church in 
Pilas, he gave to the face of an angel in his picture the faith- 
ful semblance of the idol of his heart. Touched by this com- 
pliment, the lady reciprocated his passion, and they were soon 
afterwards married. 

Murillo's rising fame and his attractions of person and 
character doubtless had much to do with the making of this 
match. The gentleness, modesty, and manliness which were 
so conspicuous in his life are plainly read in his portraits 
(painted by himself) which have come down to us. His 
delicately-moulded face, deep, spiritual eyes, full brow, and 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 367 

shapely head, with its " black cataract of hair" streaming down 
upon his shoulders, must have made him, with his quiet and 
faultless demeanor, a most lovable man to all true-hearted, 
sensible women. 

The effect of his marriage upon his art is notable. The bold 
and vigorous style to which he had been accustomed was 
softened, subdued, and polished, to be resumed at a later period 
witli more vigor than ever, coupled with exquisite grace and 
sweetness. Thus he reached the last and best of the three 
different styles which, like Raphael, he successively adopted. 
To the Spaniards these styles were known as the frio, calido, 
and vaporoso, — cold, warm, and hazy. It was the latter style, 
a suffusion of ethereal warmth and effulgence, a unity of the 
living, breathing world with the celestial life, in which Murillo 
most delighted, and in which he made his sublimest flights 
into the empyrean of the ideal. In this style he painted his 
luminous, silvery-toned annunciations, depicted the ecstasies 
of the saints, and achieved such triumphs of light and color as 
only Guido Keni and Correggio had previously attempted. 

One of the finest examples of this third-style work is the St. 
Anthony of Padua, which hangs in the cathedral at Seville. 
This picture is well described in the words of Mrs. Jameson : 
"Kneeling near a table, the shaven, brown-frocked saint is 
surprised by a visit from the infant Jesus, — a charming, naked 
babe, who descends in a golden flood of glory, walking the 
bright air as if it were the earth, while around him floats and 
hovers a company of cherubs, most of them children, forming 
a rich garland of graceful forms and lovely faces. Gazing up 
in rapture at this dazzling vision, St. Anthony kneels with 
arms outstretched to receive the approaching Saviour. On a 
table is a vase containing white lilies, the proper attribute of 
the saint, painted with such Zeuxis-like skill that birds wan- 
dering among the aisles have been seen attempting to perch on 
it and peck the flowers." 



368 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

During the night of November 4, 1874, the figure of St. 
Anthony was cut out of this picture and spirited away. 
Through the efforts of the government it was afterwards dis- 
covered in New York, while being offered for sale. It was 
immediately returned to Seville, where it was received and 
borne back to the cathedral by the people, with great rejoicing. 
It has been restored with much skill to its place in the paint- 
ing, for the protection of which the chapel where it hangs is 
now closed by lofty iron gates securely locked, and opened for 
the visitor only upon special solicitation. It so happened that 
when these rusty portals were swung back for me, a devout 
bat was chirruping joyous orisons in its place of concealment 
behind the precious picture. 

From the rapt St. Anthony of Murillo we turn naturally to 
his beatified and glorified women. His art is the apotheosis 
of womanhood and childhood, the idealization of their beauty 
and perfection. Divine they are, and spiritually irradiated 
with a glory that seems to emanate from an opened heaven, 
yet they share our mortality and are of ourselves a part. They 
are supernally exalted, and yet thoroughly human. It has 
been said that the women in the streets of Rome seem to have 
walked out of Raphael's pictures in the Vatican. His Sistine 
Madonna is a sweet Italian girl of eighteen years, and his 
infant Christ and St. John are ideals of Italian babyhood. In 
like manner Murillo's types of female beauty are just such 
brown-faced, black-eyed maidens as we now see in the streets of 
Seville, with red roses coquettish ly hung in their raven-black 
hair. His own beautiful daughter is said to be the original of 
some of his finest creations of angelic and virgin loveliness. 
His children are the very children which every traveller sees 
in Spain. He drew not upon the distant and the strange, but 
transformed and beautified the daily life around him. 

The best study of Murillo is to be had in the Royal Museum 
at Madrid, which contains forty-six of his works. The two 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 369 

principal Madonnas hang side by side in the great central gal- 
lery, than which the world has no grander chamber, no more 
fit repository for such priceless gems of art. In these pictures 
it has pleased Murillo, like Raphael, to paint the Madonna 
young, to impart to her all the guilelessness and artless grace 
of early womanhood. But the two pictures show a difference 
of age, the Madonna in the one being a girl of seventeen, and 
in the other a woman of twenty. Both are radiantly beautiful, 
and both are expressive of the sublimest and purest ecstasy, but 
the younger is the more intuitive and winsome ideal. No 
artist ever drew a lovelier semblance of maiden innocence. 
Every lineament is eloquent of purity, tenderness, and holy 
rapture. With her hands crossed upon her breast, and her face 
upturned in timid surprise and caught in adoring ecstasy, the 
Virgin stands upon a crescent amid unfolding clouds, while the 
luminous haze which surrounds her is thickly clustered with 
cherub faces. Around her figure, which is robed in spotless 
white, floats a loose drapery of blue, in pleasing contrast with 
the rich golden glow which transfuses and glorifies the whole. 
Verily, in the presence of such a work, we seem to tread on 
sacred ground. 

In the companion picture the Virgin* stands' in similar at- 
titude amid parted clouds, her crossed hands " stilling the 
glad tumult of her heart," and her face upturned in rapturous 
adoration and submission, whilst amid the ambient effulgence, 
soft and golden-hued, a host of happy cherubs are waving 
palms and strewing myrtles and lilies. Light, coloring, 
drapery, and transcendent beauty of face and form all combine 
to express and emphasize the trust, the peace, the infinite bliss 
of the transported soul. 

But the crowning jewel of the conceptions, the flower and 

* In painting the Virgin in this picture, the artist is said to have taken 
his daughter as a model. 

y 



370 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

perfect fruit of Murillo's art, is the Immaculate Conception, in 
the Louvre. This picture, with many other precious paintings, 
was carried off by Marshal Soult during the French invasion, 
and at the sale of Soult's collection, iu 1852, it was bought by 
the French government for six hundred and thirty-five thousand 
francs. In this, as in the Madrid pictures, the Virgin, robed in 
white, with drapery of blue, appears amid a lustrous entourage 
of diaphanous cloud, her feet resting upon the crescent, her 
hands meekly folded upon her bosom, and her face upturned 
in unspeakable rapture. Around her, and bearing her aloft 
in the golden mist, flutters a multitude of winged cherubs, 
painted with incomparable sweetness. Nothing could exceed, 
nothing in art has surpassed, if equalled, the pure and seraphic 
beatitude of that adoring face. Emotionless must be the 
heart that is not thrilled and awe-inspired in the contemplation 
of this sublime revelation of the possibilities of heavenly ex- 
altation to the human soul ! 

It is much to say that no artist has deserved more than 
Murillo the veneration of women. His art is the exaltation 
of motherhood. Many beautiful Madonnas have been painted, 
but the mother-soul belongs peculiarly to his. They are 
celestial in their purity and beauty, but they are not super- 
natural. His Christ-mother is a real mother, his Christ-child 
a real child, yet both are as satisfactory to our conceptions of 
the ideal as they are to our knowledge of the real. 

One of the finest of Murillo's works of this kind is his 
Virgin and Child, in the Dresden gallery. Beautiful in its 
simplicity, it is the personification of divine motherhood and 
angelic childhood, all within the range of human experience 
and sympathy. With her lips parted and her eyes directed 
heavenward, the Virgin, with reverent affection, embraces the 
bright-faced child, which rests its chubby hands upon her 
breast. The countenances are thoroughly Spanish, yet suggest 
by that fact no anachronism, since they have that touch of 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 371 

Nature which makes them kin to all the races and conditions 
of mankind. 

Resembling but not quite equalling the Dresden picture in 
style and merit is the Virgin of the Rosary, in the Madrid 
Museum. The rosary which the mother holds in her hand, 
and which gives to this picture its name, is an incongruity 
which somewhat mars its otherwise admirable effect. Murillo 
very seldom resorts to such accessories, although so common 
with the artists of his time. The Madrid collection also con- 
tains an Adoration of the Shepherds, marvellous in poetic 
grace and truth, and not excelled even by Correggio's famous 
La Notte in its magical effects of light and color. Wrapt in 
the same dreamy enchantment of the vaporoso style are (in the 
same collection) two superb annunciations and a deeply-pathetic 
picture representing the Child Redeemer — -an impersonation 
of infantile beauty and innocence — asleep upon the cross. 
Also glowing with the soft effulgence of this style is the 
delightful and universally-favorite Madrid picture known as 
The Children of the Shell, in which, with perfection of loving 
grace and tenderness, the infant Christ presents the water of 
life, in a shell, to the child St. John. Of like merit as an ideal 
portraiture of childhood and motherhood is the St. Felix, of 
the Seville collection. Of this picture, also in the vaporoso 
style, the Spaniards say that if pricked it will bleed, and that 
the playful and winsome child, which the venerable saint is in 
the act of restoring to the Virgin, has been fed on roses. 

But the genius of Murillo had also its realistic side, and 
while it could thus idealize divine infancy and motherhood, 
and the beatitudes of saints and angels, it was scarcely less 
phenomenal in portraying the gypsy and gamin life of the 
street. The so-called Beggar-Boys, produced by the same 
pencil which drew the beatific conceptions at Madrid and the 
Louvre, are the perfection of genre art. Three of these pict- 
ures, numbered 348, 349, and 357 in the catalogue, hang in 



372 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

the Royal Pinacothek at Munich. Number 348 represents 
two youthful tatterdemalions seated on the ground near a 
basket filled with fruits, the one in the act of biting off the 
berries from a bunch of grapes which he holds aloft ; and the 
other devouring a melon. In Number 349 two gamins are 
squatted on the ground, accompanied by a chipper little dog. 
One of the boys is poking a piece of melon into his mouth, 
and is being laughed at by the other. The third picture shows 
two sprawling ragamuffins engaged in playing dominos, while 
a third, standing, and accompanied by his dog, observes them, 
and devours a piece of bread. Near the group is seen a 
basket filled with fruits. 

Nothing could surpass the life, vigor, and naturalness of 
these pictures or their appropriateness of coloring. They are 
as true to life and nature as it is possible for art to make them. 
Yet Mr. Ruskin finds fault with the dusty feet of the boys, 
and with his usual dogmatism judges and condemns Murillo 
upon these specimens of his art. It is enough to say that the 
same arbitrary oracle declares that Salvator Rosa and J. M. 
W. Turner were far superior to Claude Lorraine ; that Tinto- 
retto's huge and bewildering Paradise is " the most wonderful 
piece of pure, manly, and masterly oil painting in the world, 
the most precious thing that Venice possesses ;" and, to put 
the climax upon audacious and erratic judgment, that Turner 
is " the only perfect landscape-painter the world has ever 
seen !" 

Murillo's art, like his life, is sublime in its simplicity. It 
is of that rare quality which conceals art. He paints as a tree 
grows, or a bird sings, and his work, with all its surpassing 
excellence, goes straight to the plainest understanding. He 
had no academy training, and was for the most part self-taught ; 
but he painted from the heart to the heart, and thereby made 
himself, as he still remains, the most popular of all the 
Spanish painters. 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 373 

Murillo is no imitator and no mannerist. He is thoroughly 
original. At Madrid he studied Ribera, Velasquez, Vandyke, 
and Titian, but his style is entirely his own. It is also wholly 
indigenous to his own people and country. He never was 
outside of Spain. After returning from Madrid he labored 
incessantly for thirty-seven years at Seville, producing his 
greatest and best work after he became fifty years of age. 
None of the enticements of court life or the flatteries of 
power could induce him to quit his native city. One of his 
" immaculate conceptions," which he completed at the age of 
fifty-seven years, was borne in public procession at Madrid, 
and created such a furor of admiration that King Philip sent 
at once for Murillo ; but even royal solicitation could not beguile 
him away from the pursuit of his art iu the quiet of his home. 
He has been called the painter without ambition, and properly 
so, for he certainly cared little for distinction for its own sake. 

He was equally indifferent to the acquisition of wealth. 
Vastly as he enriched the world by his name and works, he 
died almost penniless. The king honored him with commis- 
sions, and the Pope was proud to possess some of his works, 
yet the highest price he ever received for a picture was but 
eight hundred dollars, or less than the one hundred and fiftieth 
part of the amount paid by the French government for his 
Conception, in the Louvre. In 1874 his Little Shepherd, which 
Queen Isabella had presented to Guizot, was sold at auction 
for one hundred and twenty thousand francs. His Healing of 
the Cripple was bought by an English collector for one hun- 
dred and sixty thousand francs. In all civilized countries his 
works are now considered gems of almost priceless value. 
King Charles III. became so deeply impressed with their ex- 
cellence that he issued a decree forbidding their export from 
Spain ; yet, strange to say, of nearly five hundred pictures 
which Murillo is known to have painted, only one hundred 
and twenty-eight remain in his native country. Of the resi- 

32 



374 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

due, London has one hundred and five, other English cities 
one hundred and fifteen, Paris twenty-one, other French cities 
seven, Russia twenty-four, Austria-Hungary six, Italy six, 
the United States seven, Germany ten, Holland three, and 
Sweden two. Forty-seven are of unknown location. Verily, 
Murillo, like Lord Bacon, though not with the same need, has 
bequeathed his name and memory to foreign nations and to 
after-ages. 

Modest as Murillo was, and blamelessly as he lived, he did 
not wholly escape envy and even persecution. He was nar- 
rowly watched by the Inquisition, and it is said that he was 
obliged at one time to take refuge in a convent to escape pun- 
ishment for exposing the pretty foot of one of his Virgins 
beneath her drapery. The same restrictive surveillance may 
account, in part, for the fact that, pre-eminent as he was in 
his power to portray and idealize female loveliness, he has left 
behind him no portraits of real women. The works of Velas- 
quez, who was one of the greatest portrait-painters of his time, 
show a similar deficiency, and probably for similar reasons. 
The social as well as the religious customs of Spain in that 
age obliged well-bred ladies to live in a kind of Oriental 
seclusion, and were jealous of any form of art which might 
mitigate its strictness. 

Eleven years after his return from Madrid, Murillo under- 
took to establish an academy of painting in his native city, 
but was much opposed by Herrera and other artists who had 
studied in Italy and were disinclined to be led in such an en- 
terprise by an artist who had never quitted Spain. Neverthe- 
less the academy gained a permanent footing, and Murillo, its 
first president, with characteristic magnanimity, placed his 
would-be rival, Herrera, at the head of its directorship. 

Another contemporary who was loath to endure Murillo's 
ascendancy was Castillo, a painter and poet of Cordova. 
Coming to Seville, this artist viewed the master's works with 



BARTOLOME ESTEBAN MURILLO. 375 

speechless astonishment. When he had recovered voice, in 
despair of ever emulating such excellence, he exclaimed, " It 
is all over with Castillo." He then went home and died, poet- 
like, of melancholy and discouragement. Such, at least, is the 
story solemnly told by various chroniclers. 

Of Raphael it has been said that, beautiful as his works are, 
none of them " surpass the perfect picture of his life." Of 
Murillo, whose life and works bear many striking resemblances 
to those of Raphael, the remark is equally true. So far as we 
know, there was no serious blemish upon his character or 
career. Victor Cousin observes that " the loftiest aim of art 
is to arouse the sentiment of the infinite." This aim Murillo 
diligently pursued. Like Juanes, the evangelist of Spanish 
art, he was profoundly religious, and it has been related of 
him that he spent part of each day in meditation before Pedro 
Campaiia's Descent from the Cross, in a little chapel of the 
Church of Santa Cruz. On one such occasion, when reminded 
by the sacristan that it was time to close the church for the 
evening, he replied, in a state of beatific abstraction, " I wait 
until these holy persons have taken away the body of our 
Lord." 

As he lived and labored in single devotion to art, so, in one 
sense, he became a martyr to it, for while painting the Espousals 
of St. Catherine over the high altar of the Capuchin Convent 
at Cadiz, he fell from the scaffolding and received injuries 
which proved fatal. He died in April, 1682, at the age of 
sixty-four, and was buried in the Church of Santa Cruz, in 
Seville, beneath the picture he had so much admired. During 
the French occupation, in 1810, the church was destroyed, and 
the grave of Murillo, like that of Velasquez at Madrid, was 
despoiled of its contents. 

The house where he lived still stands in Seville. I found 
it one golden vernal evening, after long pursuit through laby- 
rinthian alleys, in a remote corner of the ancient Juderia, or 



376 EUROPEAN DAYS AND WAYS. 

Jews' quarter. It was a plain, whitewashed, two-story build- 
ing, with an Arabesque court, standing next to the old Moorish 
wall. It possessed no very important or attractive feature ex- 
cept its association with the great master who had been its 
occupant. Little children were playing in the grass-grown 
street near by, but except their merry voices no sound dis- 
turbed the devout and grateful reminiscences which the place 
awakened of the pure and splendid genius which has so em- 
bellished this human existence with immortal beauty, and has 
so filled the world with a light that never was on land or sea. 



THE END. 






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